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The Gradual Acceptance 



OF THE 



Copernican Theory of the Universe 



DOROTHY STIMSON, Ph.D. 



NEW YORK 
19 17 



6^ 



CopvRicHT 1917 BY Dorothy Stimsox 



Trade Selling Agents 

The Baker & Taylor Co. 

354 Fourth Ave., 

New York 



/ 



APR -4 1917 



©CI..A457776 



^9f 



TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER 




The Systems of the World in 1651 

According to Father Riccioli 

(Reduced facsimile of the frontispiece in Riccioli: Almagestum Novum, 

Bologna, 1651.) 



Explanation 

"Astrea, goddess of the heaven, wearing angel's wings and gleaming 
everywhere with stars, stands at the right; on the left is Argus of the 
hundred eyes, not tense, but indicating by the position of the telescope 
at his knee rather than at the eyes in his head, that while observing the 
work of God's hand, he appears at the same time to be worshipping as 
in genuflexion." (Riccioli: Aim. Nov., Prcefatio, xvii). He points to 
the cherubs in the heavens who hold the planets, each with its zodiacal 
sign: above him at the top is Mars, then Mercury in its crescent form, 
the Sun, and Venus also in the crescent phase; on the opposite side are 
Saturn in its "tripartite" form (the ring explanation was yet to be 
given), the sphere of Jupiter encircled by its four satellites, the crescent 
Moon, its imperfections clearly shown, and a comet. Thus Father 
Riccioli summarized the astronomical knowledge of his day. The scrolls 
quote Psalms 19:2, "Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night 
showeth knowledge." 

Astrea holds in her right hand a balance in which Riccioli's theory of 
the universe (an adaptation of the Tychonic, see p. 68) far outweighs 
the Copernican or heliocentric one. At her feet is the Ptolemaic sphere, 
while Ptolemy himself half lies, half sits, between her and Argus, with 
the comment issuing from his mouth : "I will arise if only I am cor- 
rected." His left hand rests upon the coat of arms of the Prince of 
Monaco to whom the Almagestum Novum is dedicated. 

At the top is the Hebrew Yah-Veh, and the hand of God is stretched 
forth in reference to the verse in the Book of Wisdom (10:20) : "But 
thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number and weight." 



CONTENTS 

Illustrations 7 

Preface 8 

Part L An Historical Sketch of the Heliocentric 
Theory of the Universe 
Chapter I. The Development of Astronomical 

Thought to 1400: Preliminary Review 9 

Chapter H. Copernicus and his Times 20 

Chapter HI. Later Development and Scientific De- 
fense of the Copernican Theory 33 

Part II. The Reception of the Copernican Theory. 

Chapter I. Opinions and Arguments in the Six- 
teenth Century 39 

Chapter II. Bruno and Galileo 49 

Chapter III. The Opposition and their Arguments.. 71 

Chapter IV. The Gradual Acceptance of the Coper- 
nican Theory 85 

Chapter V. The Church and the New Astronomy : 

Conclusion 95 

Appendices : Translations by the writer. 

A. Ptolemy : Almagest. Bk. I, chap. 7 : That the 
earth has no movement of rotation 107 

B. Copernicus : De Revolutionihus, Dedication to the 
Pope 109 

C. Bodin: Universes Natures Theatntm, Bk. V, sec- 
tions 1 and 2 in part, and section 10 entire 115 

D. Fienus: Epistolica Qucestio: Is it true that the 
heavens are moved and the earth is at rest? 124 

Bibliography 130 

Index 145 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facsimile of the frontispiece "The Systems of the 
World" in Riccioli : Almagestum Novum, 
1651 Frontispiece ^ 

Photographic facsimile (reduced) of a page from a 
copy of Copernicus : De Revolutionihus, as 
"corrected" in the 17th century according to 
the directions of the Congregations of the 
Index in 1620 . p. 6V 

Photographic facsimile (reduced) of another "cor- 
rected" page from the same copy p. 113'^ 



PREFACE 

THIS Study does not belong in the field of astronomy, but in 
that of the history of thought ; for it is an endeavor to 
trace the changes in people's beliefs and conceptions in regard 
to the universe as these were wrought by the dissolution of su- 
perstition resulting from the scientific and rationalist move- 
ments. The opening chapter is intended to do no more than to 
review briefly the astronomical theories up to the age of Coper- 
nicus, in order to provide a background for the better compre- 
hension of the work of Copernicus and its elifects. 

Such a study has been rendered possible only by the generous 
loan of rare books by Professor Herbert D. Foster of Dart- 
mouth College, Professor Edwin E. Slosson of Columbia Uni- 
versity, Doctor George A. Plimpton and Major George Haven 
Putnam, both of New York, and especially by the kindly gener- 
osity of Professor David Eugene Smith of Teachers College 
who placed his unique collection of rare mathematical books at 
the writer's disposal and gave her many valuable suggestions 
as to available material. Professors James T. Shotwell and 
Harold Jacoby of Columbia University have read parts of this 
study in manuscript. The writer gratefully acknowledges her 
indebtedness not only to these gentlemen, but to the many others, 
librarians and their assistants, fellow-students and friends, too 
numerous to mention individually, whose ready interest and 
whose suggestions have been of real service, and above all to 
Professor James Harvey Robinson at whose suggestion and 
under whose guidance the work was undertaken, and to the 
Reverend Doctor Henry A. Stimson whose advice and criticism 
have been an unfailing source of help and encouragement. 



PART ONE 

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE HELIOCENTRIC 
THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Development of Astronomical Thought to 1400 A. D. 

A Preliminary Sketch of Early Theories as a Background. 

THE appearances in the heavens have from earliest historic 
ages filled men with wonder and awe; then they gradually 
became a source of questioning, and thinkers sought for expla- 
nations of the daily and nightly phenomena of sun, moon and 
stars. Scientific astronomy, however, was an impossibility until 
an exact system of chronology was devised.^ Meanwhile men 
puzzled over the shape of the earth, its position in the universe, 
what the stars were and why the positions of some shifted, and 
what those fiery comets were that now and again appeared and 
struck terror to their hearts. 

In answer to such questions, the Chaldean thinkers, slightly 
before the rise of the Greek schools of philosophy, developed 
the idea of the seven heavens in their crystaUine spheres encir- 
cling the earth a^ their center.- This conception seems to lie 
back of both the later Egyptian and Hebraic cosmologies, 
as well as of the Ptolemaic. Through the visits of Greek 
philosophers to Egyptian shores this conception helped to shape 
Greek thought and so indirectly affected western civilization. 



^The earliest observation Ptolemy uses is an Egyptian one of an 
eclipse occurring March 21, 721 B. C. (Cumont: 7). [In these refer- 
ences, the Roman numerals refer to the volume, the Arabic to the page, 
except as stated otherwise. The full title is given in the bibliography 
at the back under the author's name.] 

^Warren : 40. See "Calendar" in Hastings : Ency. of Religion and 
Ethics. 



Thus our heritage in astronomical thought, as in many other 
Hnes, comes from the Greeks and the Romans reaching Europe 
(in part through Arabia and Spain), where it was shaped by the 
influence of the schools down to the close of the Middle Ages 
when men began anew to withstand authority in behalf of 
observation and were not afraid to follow whither their reason 
, led them. - 

But not all Greek philosophers, it seems,^ either knew or 
accepted the Babylonian cosmology.- According to Plutarch, 
though Thales (640P-546? B. C.) and later the Stoics beheved 
the earth to be spherical in form, Anaximander (610—546? 
B. C.) thought it to be like a "smooth stony pillar," Anaximenes 
(6th cent.) like a "table." Beginning with the followers of Thales 
or perhaps Parmenides ( ?-500 B. C.), as Diogenes Laertius 
claims,^ a long line of Greek thinkers including Plato (428P-347? 
i^B. C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B. C.) placed the earth in the cen- 
ter of the universe. Whether Plato held that the earth "encircled" 
or "clung" around' the axis is a disputed point ;* but Aristotle 
claimed it was the fixed and immovable center around which 
swung the spherical universe with its heaven of fixed stars and 
its seven concentric circles of the planets kept in their places 
^by their transparent crystalline spheres.'' 

The stars were an even greater problem. Anaximenes 
thought they were "fastened like nails" in a crystalline firma- 
ipent, and others thought them to be "fiery plates of gold 
resembling pictures."*' But if the heavens were solid, how could 
the brief presence of a comet be explained? 

Among the philosophers were some noted as mathematicians 
whose leader was Pythagoras (c. 550 B. C). He and at least one 



*For a summary of recent researches, see the preface of Heath : 
Aristarchus of Samos. For further details, see Heath : Op. cit., and the 
writings of Kugler and Schiaparelli. 

^See Plutarch: Moralia: De placitas Philosophorum, Lib. I et H, (V, 
264-277, 296-316). 

'Diogenes Laertius: De Vitis, Lib. IX, c. 3 (252). 

*Plato: Timceus, sec. 39 (HI, 459 in Jowett's translation). 

'Aristotle: De Mundo, c. 2 et 6, (HI, 628 and 62>6). 

Tlutarch: Op. cit., Lib. HL c 2 (V, 303-4). 

lO 



of the members of his school, Eudoxus (409P-356? B. C), had 
visited Egypt, according to Diogenes Laertius,' and had in all 
probability been much interested in and influenced -by the astro- 
nomical observations made by the Egyptian priests. On the same 
authority, Pythagoras was the first to declare the earth was round 
and to discuss the antipodes. He too emphasized the beauty and 
perfection of the circle and of the sphere in geometry, forms 
which became fixed for 2000 years as the fittest representations 
of the perfection of the heavenly bodies. 

There was some discussion in Diogenes' time as to the author 
of the theory of the earth's motion of axial rotation. Diogenes^' 
gives the honor to Philolaus (5th cent. B. C.) one of the Pytha- 
goreans, though he adds that others attribute it to Icetas of 
Syracuse (6th or 5th cent. B. C). Cicero, however, states" the 
position of Hicetas of Syracuse as a belief in the absolute fixed- 
ness of all the heavenly bodies except the earth, which alone 
moves in the whole universe, and that its rapid revolutions upon 
its own axis cause the heavens apparently to move and the earth 
to stand still. 

Other thinkers of Syracuse may also have felt the Egyptian 
influence; for one of the greatest of them, Archimedes (c. .287- 
212 B. C), stated the theory of the earth's revolution around 
the sun as enunciated by Aristarchus of Samos. (Perhaps this 
is the "hearth-fire of the universe" around which Philolaus 
imagined the earth to whirl.*) In Arenarms, a curious study on 
the possibility of expressing infinite sums by numerical denomi- 
nations as in counting the sands of the universe, i\rchimedes 
writes r" "For you have known that the universe is called a 
sphere by several astrologers, its center the center of the earth, 
and its radius equal to a line drawn from the center of the sun 
to the center of the earth. This was written for the unlearned, 
as you have known from the astrologers .... [Aristarchus of 



'Diogenes Laertius : De Vitis, Lib. VIII, c. 1, et 8 (205, 225), 

^Diogenes: Op. cit., Lib. VIII, c. 7, (225). 

'Cicero: Academica, Lib. II, c. 39 (322). 

^Plutarch: Op. cif., Lib. II (V. 299-300). 

^Archimedes : Arenarius, c. 1. Delambre : Astr. Anc, I, 102. 



II 



Samos]^ concludes that the world is many times greater than 
the estimate we have just given. He supposes that the fixed 
stars and the sun remain motionless, but that the earth following 
a circular course, revolves around the sun as a center, and that 
the sphere of the fixed stars having the same sun as a center, 
is so vast that the circle which he supposes the earth to follow 
in revolving holds the same ratio to the distance of the fixed 
stars as the center of a sphere holds to its circumference." 

These ancient philosophers realized in some degree the 
immensity of the universe in which the earth was but a point. 
They held that the earth was an unsupported sphere the size 
of which Eratosthenes (c. 276-194 B. C.) had calculated 
approximately. They knew the sun was far larger than the 
earth, andj Cicero with other thinkers recognized the insignifi- 
cance of earthly affairs in the face of such cosmic immensity. 
They knew too about the seven planets, had studied their 
orbits, and worked out astronomical ways of measuring the 
passage of time with a fair amount of accuracy. Hipparchus 
and other thinkers had discovered the fact of the precession of 
the equinoxes, though there was no adequate theory to account 
for it until Copernicus formulated his "motion of declination." 
The Pythagoreans accepted the idea of the earth's turning upon 
its axis, and some even held the idea of its revolution around 
the motionless sun. Others suggested that comets had orbits 
which they uniformly followed and therefore their reappearance 
could be anticipated. - 

Why then was the heliocentric theory not definitely accepted? 

In the first place, such a theory was contrary to the supposed 
facts of daily existence. A man did not have to be trained in 
the schools to observe that the earth seemed stable under his 



'This is the only account of his system. Even the age in which he 
flourished is so little known that there have been many disputes 
whether he was the original inventor of this system or followed some 
other. He was probably a contemporary of Cleanthes the Stoic in the 
3rd century B. C. He is mentioned also by Ptolemy, Diogenes Laertius 
and Vitruvius. (Schiaparelli : Die Vorlanfer des Copernicus im Alter- 
thum, 75. See also Heath: Op. cit.) 

^'Plutarch: Op. cit.; Bk. HI, c. 2 (V, 317-318). 

12 



feet and that each morning the sun swept from the east to set at 
night in the west. Sometimes it rose more to the north or to 
the south than at other times. How could that be explained if 
the sun were stationary? 

Study of the stars was valuable for navigators and for sur- 
veyors, perhaps, but such disturbing theories should not be pro- 
pounded by philosophers. Cleanthes/ according to Plutarch,' 
"advised that the Greeks ought to have prosecuted Aristarchus 
the Samian for blasphemy against religion, as shaking the very 
foundations of the world, because this man endeavoring to save 
appearances, supposed that the heavens remained immovable 
and that the earth moved through an oblique circle, at the same 
time turning about its own axis." Few would care to face their 
fellows as blasphemers and impious thinkers on behalf of an 
unsupported theory. Eighteen hundred years later Galileo 
would not do so, even though in his day the theory was by no 
means unsupported by observation. 

Furthermore, one of the weaknesses of the Greek civilization 
militated strongly against the acceptance of this hypothesis so 
contrary to the evidence of the senses. Experimentation and 
the development of applied science was practically an impossi- 
bility where the existence of slaves made manual labor degrad- 
ing and shameful. Men might reason indefinitely; but few, if 
any, were willing to try to improve the instruments of observa- 
tion or to test their observations by experiments. 

At the same time another astronomical theory was developing 
which was an adequate explanation for the phenomena observed 
up to that time.'^ This theory of epicycles and eccentrics worked 
out by Apollonius of Perga (c. 225 B. C.) and by Hipparchus 
(c. 160 B. C.) and crystallized for posterity in Ptolemy's great 
treatise on astronomy, the Almagest, (c. 140 A. D.) became the 
fundamental principle of the science until within the last three 
hundred years. The theory of the eccentric was based on the 
idea that heavenly bodies following circular orbits revolved 



^The Stoic contemporary of Aristarchus, author of the famous Stoic 
hymn. See Diogenes Laertius : De Vitis. 
^Plutarch: De Facie in Orbe Luncc, (V, 410). 
^Young: 109. 

13 



around a center that did not coincide with that of the observer 
on the earth. That would explain why the sun appeared some- 
times nearer the earth and sometimes farther away. The epi- 
cycle represented the heavenly body as moving along the cir- 
cumference of one circle (called the epicycle) the center of 
which moves on another circle (the deferent). With better 
observations additional epicycles and eccentric were used to 
represent the newly observed phenomena till in the later Mid- 
dle Ages the universe became a 

" Sphere 

With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, 

Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb" — ^ 

Yet the heliocentric theory was not forgotten. Vitruvius, a 
famous Roman architect of the Augustan Age, discussing the 
system of the universe, declared that Mercury' and Venus, the 
planets nearest the sun, moved around it as their center, though 
the earth was the center of the universe.- This same notion 
recurs in Martianus Capella's book^ in the fifth century A. D. 
and again, somewhat modified, in the 16th century in Tycho 
Brahe's conception of the universe. 

Ptolemy devotes a column or two of his Almagesf^ (to use 
the familiar Arabic name for his Syntaxis Mathematica) to the 
refutation of the heliocentric theory, thereby preserving it for 
later ages to ponder on and for a Copernicus to develop. He 
admits at the outset that such a theory is only tenable for the 
stars and their phenomena, and he gives at least three reasons 
why it is ridiculous. If the earth were not at the center, the 
observed facts of the seasons' and of day and night would be 
disturbed and even upset. If the earth moves, its vastly greater 
mass would gain in speed upon other bodies, and soon animals 
and other lighter bodies would be left behind unsupported in the 
air — a notion "ridiculous to the last degree," as he comments, 
"even to imagine it." Lastly, if it moves, it would have such 



'Milton: Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII, 11. 82-85. 

'Vitruvius: De Architectura, Lib. IX, c. 4 (220). 

'Martianus Capella : De Nuptiis, Lib. VIII, (668). 

*Ptolemy: Almagest, Lib. I, c. 7, (1, 21-25). Translated in Appendix B. 



tremendous velocity that stones or arrows shot straight up in 
the air must fall to the ground east of their starting point, — a 
'laughable supposition"' indeed to Ptolemy. 

This book became the great text of the Middle Ages ; its 
author's name was given to the geocentric theory it maintained. 
Astronomy for a thousand years was valuable only to deter- 
mine the time of Easter and other festivals of the Church, and 
to serve as a basis for astrology for the mystery-loving people 
of Europe. 

To the Arabians in Syria and in Spain belongs the credit of 
preserving for Europe during this long period the astronomical 
works of the Greeks, to which they added their own valuable 
observations of the heavens — valuable because made with 
greater skill and better instruments,^ and because with these 
observations later scientists could illustrate the permanence or 
the variability of important elements. They also discovered the 
so-called ''trepidation" or apparent shifting of the fixed stars 
to explain which they added another sphere to Ptolemy's eight. 
Early in the sixth century Uranus translated Aristotle's works 
into Syrian, and this later was translated into Arabic.^ Alba- 
tegnius^ (c. 850-829 A. D.), the Arabian prince who was the 
greatest of all their astronomers, made his observations from 
Aracte and Damascus, checking up and in some cases amending 
Ptolemy's results.* 

Then the center of astronomical development shifted from 
Syria to Spain and mainly through this channel passed on into 
Western Europe. The scientific fame of Alphonse X of Castile 
(1252-1284 A. D.) called the Wise, rests chiefly upon his 
encouragement of astronomy. With his support the Alfonsine 
Tables were calculated. He is said^ to have summoned fifty 
learned men from Toledo, Cordova and Paris to translate into 

^Whewell: I, 239. 

'Whewell: I, 294. 

^Berry: 79. 

*His book D^ Motu Stellarum, translated into Latin by Plato Tibur- 
tinus (fl.lll6) was published at Nuremberg (1557) by Melancthon with 
annotations by Regiomontanus. Ency. Brit. 11th. Edit. 

'Vaughan: I, 281. 

IS 



Spanish the works of Ptolemy and other philosophers. Under 
his patronage the University of Salamanca developed rapidly to 
become within two hundred years one of the four great univer- 
sities of Europe^ — a center for students from all over Europe 
and the headquarters for new thought, where Columbus was 
sheltered,^ and later the Copernican system was accepted and 
publicly taught at a time when Galileo's views were suppressed.^ 

Popular interest in astronomy was evidently aroused, for 
Sacrobosco (to give John Holy wood* his better known Latin 
name) a Scotch professor at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 13th 
century, published a small treatise De Sphccri Miindo that was 
immensely popular for centuries,-^ though is was practically only 
an abstract of the Almagest. WhewelP tells of a French poem 
of the time of Edward I entitled Ymage dii Monde, which gave 
the Ptolemaic view and was illustrated in the manuscript in the 
University of Cambridge with a picture of the spherical earth 
with men upright on it at every point, dropping balls down per- 
forations in the earth to illustrate the tendency of all things 
toward the center. Of the same period (13th century) is an 
Arabian compilation in which there is a reference to another 
work, the book of Hammarmunah the Old, stating that "the 
earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle, and that some are 
on top, the others below . . . and there are countries in which 
it is constantly day or in which at least the night continues only 
some instants."^ Apparently, however, such advanced views 
were of no influence, and the Ptolemaic theory remained 
unshaken down to the close of the 15th century. 

Aside from the adequacy of this explanation of the universe 
for the times, the attitude of the Church Fathers on the matter 

'Graux : 318 

^Graux: 319. 

'Rashdall: II, pt. I, 77. 

*Dict. of Nat. Biog. 

^MSS. of it are extremely numerous. It was the second astronomical 
book to be printed, the first edition appearing at Ferrara in 1472. 65 
editions appeared before 1647. It was translated into Italian, French, 
German, and Spanish, and had many commentators. Diet, of Nat. Biog. 

"Whewell : I, 277. 

'Blavatski: II, 29, note. 

i6 



was to a large degree responsible for this acquiescence. Early 
in the first century A. D., Philo Judaeus^ emphasized the minor 
importance of visible objects compared with intellectual mat- 
ters, — a foundation stone in the Church's theory of an homo- 
centric universe. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 A. D.) calls 
the heavens solid since what is solid is capable of being per- 
ceived by the senses." Origen (c. 185-c. 254.) has recourse to 
the Holy Scriptures to support his notion that the sun, moon, 
and stars are living beings obeying God's commands.^ Then 
Lactantius thunders against those who discuss the universe as 
comparable to people discussing ''the character of a city they 
have never seen, and whose name only they know." "Such mat- 
ters cannot be found out by inquiry."* The existence of the an- 
tipodes and the rotundity of the earth are "marvelous fictions," 
and philosophers are "defending one absurd opinion by 
another"^ when in explanation why bodies would not fall ofif a 
spherical earth, they claim these are borne to the center. 

How clearly even this brief review illustrates what Henry 
Osborn Taylor calls*"' the fundamental principles of patristic 
faith: that the will of God is the one cause of all things (volun- 
tate Dei immobilis manet et stat in sseculum terra.'' Ambrose : 
Hexcemeron.) and that this will is unsearchable. He further 
points out that Augustine's and Ambrose's sole interest in 
natural fact is as "confirmatory evidence of Scriptural 
truth." The great Augustine therefore denies the existence of 
antipodes since they could not be peopled by Adam's children.^ 
He indifferently remarks elsewhere :^ "What concern is it to 
me whether the heavens as a sphere enclose the earth in the 
middle of the world or overhang it on either side?" Augustine 



^Philo Judaeus: Quis Rerum Dwinarum Hcsres. (IV, 7). 
'Clement of Alexandria: Stromatum, Lib. V, c. 14, (III, 67). 
'Origen: De Principiis, Lib. I, c. 7, (XI, 171). 
*Lactantius: Dwinarum Institutionum, Lib. Ill, c. 3 (VI, 355). 
^Ibid: Lib. Ill, c. 24, (VI, 425-428). 
^Taylor: Medicsval Mind, I, 74. 

^By the will of God the earth remains motionless and stands through- 
out the age. 
'Augustine: De Civitate Dei, Lib. XVI, c. 9, (41, p. 437). 
'Augustine: De Genesi, II, c. 9, (v. 34, p. 270). (White's translation). 

17 



does, however, dispute the claims of astrologers accurately to 
foretell the future by the stars, since the fates of twins or those 
born at the same moment are so diverse/ 

Philastrius (d. before 397 A. D.) dealing with various here- 
sies, denounces those who do not believe the stars are fixed in 
the heavens as "participants in the vanity of pagans and the 
foolish opinions of philosophers," and refers to the widespread 
idea of the part the angels play in guiding and impelling the 
heavenly bodies in their courses.^ 

It would take a brave man to face such attitudes of scornful 
indiflFerence on the one hand and denunciation on the other, in 
support of a theory the Church considered heretical. 

Meanwhile the Church was developing the homocentric notion 
which would, of course, presuppose the ceiltral position in the 
universe for man's abiding place. In the pseudo-Dionysius^ is 
an elaborately worked out hierarchy of the beings in the uni- 
verse that became the accepted plan of later centuries, best 
known to modern times through Dante's blending of it with the 
Ptolemaic theory in the Divine Comedy^ Isidore of Seville 
taught that the universe was created to serve man's purposes,® 
and Peter Lombard (12th cent.) sums up the situation in the 
definite statement that man was placed at the center of the uni- 
verse to be served by that universe and in turn himself to serve 
God.^ Supported by the mighty Thomas Aquinas^ this became 
a fundamental Church doctrine. 

An adequate explanation of the universe existed. Aristotle, 
Augustine, and the other great authorities of the Middle Ages, 
all upheld the conception of a central earth encircled by the 
seven planetary spheres and by the all embracing starry firma- 
ment. In view of the phrases used in the Bible about the heav- 



^Augustine: Civitate Dei, Lib. V, c. 5, (v. 41, p. 145). 
^Philastrius: De Hceresibus, c. 133, (v. 12, p. 1264). 
^Pseudo-Dionysius : De Coelesti lerarchia, (v. 122, p. 10354) , 
*Milman: VIII, p. 228-9. See the Paradiso. 

^Isidore of Seville: De Ordine Creaturarum, c. 5, sec. 3, (v. 83, p. 923). 
'Lombard: Sententia, Bk. II, Dist. I, sec. 8, (v. 192, p. 655). 
^Aquinas: Summa Theologica, pt. I, qu. 70, art. 2. {Op. Om. Caietani, 
V, 179). 

i8 



ens, and in view of the formation of fundamental theological 
doctrines based on this supposition by the Church Fathers, is it 
surprising that any other than a geocentric theory seemed 
untenable, to be dismissed with a smile when not denounced as 
heretical? Small wonder is it, in the absence of the present day 
mechanical devices for the exact measurement of time and space 
as aids to observation, that the Ptolemaic, or geocentric, theory 
of the universe endured through centuries as it did, upheld by 
the authority both of the Church and, in essence at least, by the 
great philosophers whose works constituted the teachings of the 
schools. 



19 



CHAPTER II. 

Copernicus and His Times. 

DURING these centuries, one notable scholar at least stood 
forth in open hostility to the slavish devotion to Aristotle's 
writings and with hearty appreciation for the greater scientific 
accuracy of "infidel philosophers among the Arabians, Hebrews 
and Greeks."^ In his Opus Tertium (1267), Roger Bacon also 
pointed out how inaccurate were the astronomical tables used 
by the Church, for in 1267, according to these tables "Christians 
will fast the whole week following the true Easter, and will eat 
flesh instead of fasting at Quadragesima for a week — which is 
absurd," and thus Christians are made foolish in the eyes of the 
heathen.- Even the rustic, he added, can observe the phases of 
the moon occurring a week ahead of the date set by the calen- 
dar.^ Bacon's protests were unheeded, however, and the 
Church continued using the old tables which grew increasingly 
inaccurate with each year. Pope Sixtus IV sought to reform 
the calendar two centuries later with the aid of Regiomontanus, 
then the greatest astronomer in Europe (1475) ;* the Lateran 
Council appealed to Copernicus for help (1514), but little could 
be done, as Copernicus replied, till the sun's and the moon's 
positions had been observed far more precisely f and the modern 
scientific calendar was not adopted until 1582 under Pope 
Gregory XIII . 

What was the state of astronomy in the century of Coper- 
nicus's birth? Regiomontanus — to use Johann Miiller's Latin 
name — his teacher Purbach, and the great cardinal Nicolas of 
Cues were the leading astronomers of this fifteenth century. 



^Roger Bacon: Op^^s Tertium, 295, 30-31. 

^Ibid: 289. 

nhid: 282. 

*Delambre: Moyen Age, 365. 

'Prowe: II, 67-70. 



20 



Piirbach^ (1432-1462) died before he had fulfilled the promise 
of his youth, leaving his Epitome of Ptolemy's Almagest to be 
completed by his greater pupil. In his Theorica Planetarum 
(1460) Piirbach sought to explain the motions of the planets by 
placing each planet between the walls of two curved surfaces 
with just sufficient space in which the planet could move. As 
M. Delambre remarked :- "These walls might aid the under- 
standing, but one must suppose them transparent; and even if 
they guided the planet as was their purpose, they hindered the 
movement of the comets. Therefore they had to be abandoned, 
and in our own modern physics they are absolutely superfluous ; 
they have even been rather harmful, since they interfered with 
the slight irregularities caused by the force of attraction in plan- 
etary movements which observations have disclosed." This 
scheme gives some indication of the elaborate devices scholars 
evolved in order to cope with the increasing number of seeming 
irregularities observed in ''the heavens," and perhaps it makes 
clearer why Copernicus was so dissatisfied with the astronomical 
hypothesis of his day, and longed for some simpler, more har- 
monious explanation. 

Regiomontanus" (1436-1476) after Piirbach's death, con- 
tinued his work, and his astronomical tables (pub. 1475) were 
in general use throughout Europe till superseded by the vastly 
more accurate Copernican Tables a century later. It has been 
said^ that his fame inspired Copernicus (born three years before 
the other's death in 1476) to become as great an astronomer. 
M. Delambre hails him as the wisest astronomer Europe had 
yet produced^ and certainly his renown was approached only by 
that of the great Cardinal. 



^Delambre: Moyen Age, 262-272. 

^Delambre: Moyen Age, 272. 

^It has been claimed that Regimontanus knew' of the earth's motion 
around the sun a hundred years before Copernicus ; but a German 
writer has definitely disproved this claim by tracing it to its source in 
Schoner's Opusculum Geographicum (1553) which states only that he 
believed in the earth's axial rotation. Ziegler : 62. 

*Ibid: 62. ^Delambre: Op. cit.; 365. 

21 



Both Janssen/ the Cathohc historian, and Father Hagen- of 
the Vatican Observatory, together with many other Cathohc 
writers, claim that a hundred years before Copernicus, Cardi- 
nal Nicolas Cusanus^ (c. 1400-1464) had the courage and inde- 
pendence to uphold the theory of the earth's motion and its 
rotation on its axis. As Father Hagen remarked : "Had Coper- 
nicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have 
been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work." 
But the Cardinal stated these views of the earth's motions in a 
mystical, hypothetical way which seems to justify the marginal 
heading 'Taradox" (in the edition of 1565).* And unfor- 
tunately for these writers, the Jesuit father, Riccioli, the official 
spokesman of that order in the 17th century after Galileo's con- 
demnation, speaking of this paradox, called attention, also, 
to a passage in one of the Cardinal's sermons as indicating that 
the latter had perhaps ''forgotten himself" in the De Docta 
Ignorantia, or that this paradox "was repugnant to him, or that 
he had thought better of it."^ The passage he referred to is as 
follows : "Prayer is more powerful than all created things. 

^Janssen : Hist, of Ger., I, 5. 

'Cath. Ency. : "Cusanus." ^From Cues near Treves. 

*Cusanus : Dc Docta Ignorantia, Bk. II, c. 11-12: "Centrum igitur 
mundi, coincideret cum circumferentiam, nam si centrum haberet et 
circumferentiam, et sic intra se haberet suum initium et finem et esset 
ad aliquid aliud ipse mundus terminatus, et extra mundum esset 
aluid et locus, quae omnia veritate carent. Cum igitur non sit 
possibile, mundum claudi intra centrum corporale et circumferentiam, 
non intelligitur mundus, cuius centrum et circumf erentia sunt Deus : et 
cum hie non sit mundus infinitus, tamen non potest concipi finitus, cum 
terminis careat, intra quos claudatur. Terra igitur, quae centrum esse 
nequit, motu omni carere non potest, nam eam moveri taliter etiam 
necesse est, quod per infinitum minus moveri posset. Sicut igitur terra 
non est centram mundi. . . . Unde licet terra quasi stella sit, pro- 
pinquior polo centrali, tamen movetur, et non describit minimum circu- 
lum in motu, ut est ostensum. . . . Terrae igitur figura est mobilis et 
sphaerica et eius motus circularis, sed perfectior esse posset. Et quia 
maximum in perfectionibus motibus, et figuris in mundo non est, ut ex 
iam dictis patent: tunc non est verum quod terra ista sit vilissima et 
infima, nam quamvis videatur centralior, quo'ad mundum, est tamen 
etiam, eadem ratione polo propinquior, ut est dictum." (pp. 38-39). 

'Riccioli: Aim. Nov., II, 292. 
22 



Although angels, or some kind of beings, move the spheres, 
the Sun and the stars ; prayer is more powerful than they 
are, since it impedes motion, as when the prayer of 
Joshua made the Sun stand still. "^ This may explain 
why Copernicus apparently disregarded the Cardinal's par- 
adox, for he made no reference to it in his book; and the 
statement itself, to judge by the absence of contemporary com- 
ment, aroused no interest at the time. But of late years, the 
Cardinal's position as stated in the De Docta Ignorantia has 
been repeatedly cited as an instance of the Church's friendly 
attitude toward scientific thought,- to show that Galileo's con- 
demnation was due chiefly to his "contumacy and disobedience." 
Copernicus" himself was born in Thorn on February 19, 1473,* 
seven years after that Hansa town founded by the Teutonic 
Order in 1231 had come under the sway of the king of Poland 
by the Second Peace of Thorn. ^ His father," Niklas Kopper- 
nigk, was a wholesale merchant of, Cracow who had removed 
to Thorn before 1458, married Barbara Watzelrode of an old 
patrician Thorn family, and there had served as town councillor 



^Cusanus: Opera, 549: Excitationum, Lib. VII, ex sermone: Debitores 
sumus: "Est enim oratio, omnibus creaturis potentior. Nam angeli seu 
intelligentiae, movent orbes, Solem et Stellas : sed oratio potentior, quia 
impedit motum, sicut oratio Josuae, fecit sistere Solem." 

'Di Bruno. 284, 286a; Walsh: An Early Allusion, 2-3. 

^Nicolaus Coppernicus (Berlin, 1883-4; 3 vol.; Ft. I, Biography, Ft. II, 
Sources), by Dr. Leopold Fro we gives an exhaustive account of all the 
known details in regard to Copernicus collected from earlier biographers 
and tested most painstakingly by the documentary evidence Dr. Prowe 
and his fellow-workers unearthed during a lifetime devoted to this sub- 
ject. (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.) The manuscript authority Dr. 
Frowe cites (Frowe: I, 19-27 and foot-notes), requires the double p in 
Copernicus's name, as Copernicus himself invariably used the two p's in 
the Latinized form Coppernic without the termination us, and usually when 
this termination was added. Also official records and the letters from his 
friends usually give the double p ; though the name is found in many 
variants — Koppernig, Copperinck, etc. His signatures in his books, his 
name in the letter he published in 1509, and the Latin form of it used 
by his friends all bear testimony to his use of the double p. But custom 
has for so many centuries sanctioned the simpler spelling, that it seems 
unwise not to conform in this instance to the time-honored usage. 

Trowe: I, 85. 'Ency. Brit.: "Thorn." Trowe: I, 47-53. 

23 



for nineteen years until his death in 1483/ Thereupon his 
mother's brother, Lucas Watzelrode, later bishop of Ermeland, 
became his guardian, benefactor and close friend. - 

After the elementary training in the Thorn school,-^ the lad 
entered the university at Cracow, his father's former home, 
where he studied under the faculty of arts from 1491-1494.^ 
Nowhere else north of the Alps at this time were mathematics 
and astronomy in better standing than at this university.'' Six- 
teen teachers taught these subjects there during the years of 
Copernicus's stay, but no record exists of his work under any 
of them.^ That he must have studied these two sciences there, 
however, is proved by Rheticus's remark in the Narratio Priina^ 
that Copernicus, after leaving Cracow, went to Bologna to work 
with Dominicus Maria di Novara "non tam discipulus quam 
adjutor." He left Cracow without receiving a degree,^ returned 
to Thorn in 1494 when he and his family decided he should 
enter the Church after fiirst studying in Italy."* Consequently he 
crossed the Alps in 1496 and was that winter matriculated at 
Bologna in the ''German nation."^" The following summer he 
received word of his appointment to fill a vacancy among the 
canons of the cathedral chapter at Ermeland where his uncle had 
been bishop since 1489.^\ He remained in Italy, however, about 
ten years altogether, studying civil law at Bologna, and canon 
law and medicine at Padua,^- yet receiving his degree as doctor 
of canon law from the university of Ferrara in 1503.'"' He was 
also in Rome for several months during the Jubilee year, 1500. 



^These facts would seem to justify the Poles today in claiming Coper- 
nicus as their fellow-countryman by right of his father's nationality 
and that of his native city. Dr. Prowe, however, claims him as a "Prus- 
sian" both because of his long residence in the Prussian-Polish bishopric 
of Ermeland, and because of Copernicus's own reference to Prussia as 
"unser lieber Vaterland." (Prowe: II, 197.) 

'Prowe: I, 73-82. 'Ibid: I, 111. 'Ibid: I, 124-129. 'Ibid: I, 137. 

"Ibid: I, 141-143. 'Rheticus : Narratio Prima, 448 (Thorn edit). 

Trowe: 1, 154. 'Ibid: I, 169. '"Ibid: I, 174. 

"Ibid: I, 175. This insured him an annual income which amounted to 
a sum equalling about $2250 today. Later he received a sinecure appoint- 
ment besides at Breslau. (Holden in Pop. Sci., 111.) 

'"Prowe : I, 224. 'Tbid : I, 308. 

24 



At this period the professor of astronomy at Bologna was 
the famous teacher Dominicus Maria di Novara (1454-1504), a 
man "ingenio et animo Hber" who dared to attack the immuta- 
bihty of the Ptolemiac system, since his own observations, espe- 
cially of the Pole Star, differed by a degree and more from the 
traditional ones.^ He dared to criticise the long accepted system 
and to emphasize the Pythagorean notion of the underlying har- 
mony and simplicity in nature^ ; and from him Copernicus may 
have acquired these ideas, for whether they lived together or 
not in Bologna, they were closely associated. It was here, too, 
that Copernicus began his study of Greek which later was to be 
the means^ of encouraging him in his own theorizing by ac- 
quainting him with the ancients who had thought along similar 
lines. 

In the spring of the year (1501) following his visit to Rome,* 
Copernicus returned to the Chapter at Frauenburg to get further 
leave of absence to study medicine at the University of Padua. ^ 
Whether he received a degree at Padua or not and how long 
he stayed there are uncertain points.^ He was back in Erme- 
land early in 1506. 

His student days were ended. And now for many years he 
led a very active life, first as companion and assistant to his 
uncle the Bishop, with whom he stayed at Schloss Heilsberg till 
after the Bishop's death in 1512; then as one of the leading 
canons of the chapter at Frauenburg, where he lived most of 
the rest of his life.^ As the chapter representative for five years 
(at intervals) he had oversight of the spiritual and temporal 
affairs of two large districts in the care of the chapter.^ He 
went on various diplomatic and other missions to the King of 
Poland,^ to Duke Albrecht of the Teutonic Order,^" and to the 
councils of the German states. ^^ He wrote a paper of considera- 



^Ibid : I, 240 and note. Little is known about him today, except that 
he was primarily an observer, and was highly esteemed by his immediate 
successors ; see Gilbert : De Magnete. 

"Gierke in Ency. Brit., "Novara." *Prowe: I, 249. 

*Prowe: I, 279. ^Ibid, 294. ^bid: I, 319. 

'Prowe: I, 335-380. Ibid: II, 75-110, 116, 124. *Ibid: II, 204-8. 

^bid: II, 110. "Ibid: II, 144. 

as 



ble weight upon the much needed reform of the Prussian cur- 
rency.^ His skill as a physician was in demand not only in his 
immediate circle- but in adjoining countries, Duke Albrecht 
once summoning him to Konigsberg to attend one of his 
courtiers.^ He was a humanist as well as a Catholic Church- 
man, and though he did not approve of the Protestant Revolt, 
he favored reform and toleration.* Gassendi claims that he was 
also a painter, at least in his student days, and that he painted 
portraits well received by his contemporaries." But his interest 
and skill in astronomy must have been recognized early in his 
life for in 1514 the committee of the Lateran Council in charge 
of the reform of the calendar summoned him to their aid.** 

He was no cloistered monk devoting all his time to the study 
of the heavens, but a cultivated man of affairs, of recognized 
ability in business and statesmanship, and a leader among his 
fellow canons. His mathematical and astronomical pursuits 
were the occupations of his somewhat rare leisure moments, 
except perhaps during the six years with his uncle in the com- 
parative freedom of the bishop's castle, and during the last ten 
or twelve years of his life, after his request for a coadjutor had 
resulted in Hghtening his duties. In his masterwork De Revo- 
hitionibus'^ there are recorded only 27 of his own astronomical 
observations, and these extend over the years from 1497 to 
1529. The first was made at Bologna, the second at Rome in 
1500, and seven of the others at Frauenburg, where the rest were 
also probably made. It is believed the greater part of the De 
Revolutionibus was written at Heilsburg^ where Copernicus was 
free from his chapter duties, for as he himself says^ in the Dedi- 
cation to the Pope (dated 1543) his work had been formulated 



^Ibid: II, 146. ^Ibid: II, 293-319. 'Ibid: II, 464-472. 

nbid: II, 170-187. 'Holden in Pop. Sci., 109. 

Trowe: II, 67-70. 

"Copernicus : De Revolutionibus, Thorn edit., 444. The last two words 
of the full title : De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium are not on the 
original MS. and are believed to have been added by Osiander. Prowe: 
II, 541, note. 

nbid : II, 490-1. 

^Copernicus: Dedication, 4. (Thorn edit.) 
26 



not merely nine years but for "more than three nines of years." 
It had not been neglected all this time, however, as the original 
MS. (now in the Prague Library) with its innumerable changes 
and corrections shows how continually he worked over it, alter- 
ing and correcting the tables and verifying his statements.^ 

Copernicus was a philosopher.- He thought out a new expla- 
nation of the world machine with relatively little practical work 
of his own,^ though we know he controlled his results by the ac- 
cumulated observations of the ages.^ His instruments were in- 
adequate, inaccurate and out of date even in his time, for much 
better. ones were then being made at Nurnberg' ; and the cloudy 
climate of Ermeland as well as his own active career prevented 
him from the long-continued, painstaking observing, which men 
like Tycho Brahe were to carry on later. Despite such handi- 
caps, because of his dissatisfaction with the complexities and 
intricacies of the Ptolemaic system and because of his conviction 
that the laws of nature were simple and harmonious, Copernicus 
searched the writings of the classic philosophers, as he himself 
tells us,*^ to see what other explanation of the universe had been 
suggested. "And I found first in Cicero that a certain Nicetas had 
thought the earth moved. Later in Plutarch I found certain oth- 
ers had been of the same opinion." He quoted the Greek refer- 
ring to Philolaus the Pythagorean, Heraclides of Pontus, and 
Ecphantes the Pythagorean.'^ As a result he began to consider 
the mobility of the earth and found that such an explanation 



'Prowe: II, 503-508. 'Ibid: II, 64. 'Ibid: II, 58-9. 

*Rheticus : Narratio Prima. 

•^Prowe : II, 56. 

''Copernicus : Dedication, 5-6. See Appendix B. 

"For a translation of this dedication in full, see Appendix B. 

In the original MS. occurs a reference (struck out) to Aristarchus of 
Samos as holding the theory of the earth's motion. (Prowe: II, 507, 
note.) The finding of this passage proves that Copernicus had at least 
heard of Aristarchus, but his apparent indifference is the more strange 
since an account of his teaching occurs in the same book of Plutarch 
from which Copernicus learned about Philolaus. But the chief source 
of our knowledge about Aristarchus is through Archimedes, and the 
editio princeps of his works did not appear till 1544, a year after the 
death of Copernicus. C. R. Eastman in Pop. Set. 68:325. 

27 



seemingly solved many astronomical problems with a simplicity 
and a harmony utterly lacking in the old traditional scheme. 

/"" Unaided by a telescope, he worked out in part the right theory 
of the universe and for the first time in history placed all the 
then known planets in their true positions with the sun at the 
center. He claimed that the earth turns on its axis as it travels 
around the sun, and careens slowly as it goes, thus by these 
three motions explaining many of the apparent movements of 
the sun and the planets. He retained,^ however, the immobile 
heaven of the fixed stars (though vastly farther off in order 
to account for the non-observance of any stellar parallax-), the 

J "perfect" and therefore circular orbits of the planets, certain of 
the old eccentrics, and 34 new epicycles in place of all the old 
ones which he had cast aside.^ He accepted the false notion 
of trepidation enunciated by the Arabs in the 9th century and 
later overthrown by Tycho Brahe.^ His calculations were weak.^ 
But his great book is a sane and modern work in an age of as- 
trology and superstition.*' His theory is a triumph of reason and 
imagination and with its almost complete independence of 
authority is perhaps as original a work as an human being 

^ may be expected to produce. 

Copernicus was extremely reluctant to publish his book be- 
cause of the misunderstandings and malicious attacks it would 
vmquestionably arouse." Possibly, too, he was thinking of the 
hostility already existing between himself and his Bishop, Dan- 
tiscus,* whim he did not wish to antagonize further. But his 



^Delambre : Astr. Mod. pp. xi-xii. 

'As the earth moves, the position in the heavens of a fixed star seen 
from the earth should differ slightly from its position observed six 
months later when the earth is on the opposite side of its orbit. The dis- 
tance to the fixed stars is so vast, however, that this final proof of the 
earth's motion was not attained till 1838 when Bessel (1784-1846) ob- 
served stellar parallax from Konigsberg. Berr)^: 123-24. 

^Commentariolus in Prowe : III, 202. 

*Holden in Pop. Set., 117. 

'Delambre: Astr. Mod., p. xi. 

^Snyder: 165. 

'Copernicus : Dedication, 3. 

Trowe: II, 362-7. 

28 



devoted pupil and friend, Rheticus, aided by Tiedeman Giese, 
Bishop of Culm and a lifelong friend, at length (1542) per- 
suaded him.^ So he entrusted the matter to Giese who passed 
it on to Rheticus, then connected with the University at Witten- 
berg as professor of mathematics.- Rheticus, securing leave 
of absence from Melancthon his superior, went to Niirnberg to 
supervise the printing.^ This was done by Petrejus. Upon his 
return to Wittenberg, Rheticus left in charge Johann Schoner, a 
famous mathematician and astronomer, and Andreas Osiander, 
a Lutheran preacher interested in astronomy. The printed book^ 
was placed in Copernicus's hands at Frauenburg on May 24th, 
1543, as he lay dying of paralysis.'"' 

Copernicus passed away that day in ignorance that his Ufe's 
work appeared before the world not as a truth but as an hypoth- 
esis ; for there had been inserted an anonymous preface "ad lec- 
torem de hypothesibus huius opera" stating this was but another 
hypothesis for the greater convenience of astronomers.*^ ''Neque 
enim necesse est eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne verisimiles 
quidem, sed sufificit hoc unum, si calculum observationibus con- 
gruentem exhibeant."^ — For years Copernicus was thought to 
have written this preface to disarm criticism. Kepler sixty 
years later (1601) called attention to this error,^ and quoted 
Osiander's letters to Copernicus and to Rheticus of May, 1541, 
suggesting that the system be called an hypothesis to avert at- 
tacks by theologians and Aristotelians. He claimed that Osian- 
der had written the preface; but Kepler's article never was 



^Ibid: II, 406. ^Ibid: II, 501. ^bid: II, 517-20. 

*Four other editions have since appeared; at Basel, 1566, Amsterdam 
1617, Warsaw 1847, and Thorn 1873. For further details, see Prowe : II, 
543-7, and Thorn edition pp. xii-xx. The edition cited in this study 
is the Thorn one of 1873. 

'Prowe: II, 553-4. 

"Copernicus : De Revolutionihus , I. "To the reader on the hypotheses 
of this book." 

'"For it is not necessary that these hypotheses be true, nor even prob- 
able, but this alone is sufficient, if they show reasoning fitting the obser- 
vations." 

*Kepler : Apologia Tychonis contra JJrsum in Op. Om. : I, 244-246. 

29 



finished and remained unpublished till 1858/ Giese and Rhe- 
ticus of course knew that the preface falsified Copernicus's 
work, and Giese, highly indignant at the ''impiety" of the printer 
(who he thought had written it to save himself from blame) 
wrote Rheticus urging him to write another '"prsefatiunculus" 
purging the book of this falsehood.- This letter is dated July 26, 
1543, and the book had appeared in April. Apparently nothing 
was done and the preface was accepted without further chal- 
lenge. 

It remains to ask whether people other than Copernicus's inti- 
mates had known of his theory before 1543. Peucer, Melanc- 
thon's nephew, declared Copernicus was famous by 1525," and 
the invitation from the Lateran Council committee indicates his 
renown as early as 1514. In Vienna in 1873^ there was found a 
Commentariohis, or summary of his great work,^ written by 
Copernicus for the scholars friendly to him. It was probably 
written soon after 1530. and gives a full statement of his views 
following a series of seven axioms or theses summing up the 
new theory. This little book probably occasioned the order from 
Pope Clement VII in 1533 to Widmanstadt to report to him on 
the new scheme.*^ This Widmanstadt did in the papal gardens 
before the Pope with several of the cardinals and bishops, and 
was presented with a book as his reward. 

In 1536, the Cardinal Bishop of Capua, Nicolas con Schon- 
berg, apparently with the intent to pave the way for the theory 
at Rome, wrote for a report of it." It is not known whether the 
report was sent, and the cardinal died the following year. But 
that Copernicus was pleased by this recognition is evident from 
the prominence he gave to the cardinal's letter, as he printed 
it in his book at the beginning, even before the dedication to the 
Pope. 



Trowe: II, 251, note. 'Ibid: II, 537-9. 

^Ibid : II, 273. *Ibid : II, 286-7. 

^A second copy was found at Upsala shortly afterwards, though for 
centuries its existence was unknown save for two slight references to 
such a book, one by Gemma Frisius, the other by Tycho Brahe. Prowe : 
II. 284. 

•Ibid: II, 273-4. 

'Prowe: II, 274, note. 

30 



The most widely circulated account at this time, however, 
was the Narratio Prima, a letter from Georg Joachim of 
Rhaetia (better known as Rheticusj, written in October, 1539, 
from Frauenburg to Johann Schoner at Niirnberg.^ Rheticus,'" 
at twenty-five years of age professor of mathematics at Witten- 
berg, had gone uninvited to Frauenburg early that summer to 
visit Copernicus and learn for himself more in detail about this 
new system. This was rather a daring undertaking, for not 
only were Luther and Melancthon outspoken in their condemna- 
tion of Copernicus, but Rheticus was going from Wittenberg, 
the headquarters of the Lutheran heresy, into the bishopric of 
Ermeland where to the Bishop and the King his overlord, the 
very name of Luther was anathema. Nothing daunted, Rheticus 
departed for Frauenberg and could not speak too highly of the 
cordial welcome he received from the old astronomer. He came 
for a few weeks, and remained two years to return to Witten- 
berg as an avowed believer in the system and its first teacher 
and promulgator. Not only did he write the Nurratio Prima 
and an Encomium Borussce, both extolling Copernicus, but what 
is more important, he succeeded in persuading him to allow the 
publication of the De Revolutionihus. Rheticus returned to his 
post in 1541, to resign it the next year and become Dean of the 
Faculty of Arts. In all probability the conflict was too intense 
between his new scientific beliefs and the statements required of 
him as professor of the old mathematics and astronomy. 

His colleague, Erasmus Reinhold, continued to teach astron- 
omy there, though he, too, accepted the Copernican system.^ 
He published a series of tables (Tabulce Prutenicce, 1551) based 
on the Copernican calculations to supersede the inaccurate ones 
by Regiomontanus ; and these were in general use throughout 
Europe for the next seventy-odd years. As he himself 
declared, the series was based in its principles and fundamentals 
upon the observations of the famous Nicolaus Copernicus. The 
almanacs deduced from these calculations probably did more to 



'Prowe: II, 426-440. 
'Ibid: II, 387-405. 
'Ibid: II, 391. 



31 



bring the new system into general recognition and gradual 
acceptance than did the theoretical works/ 

Opposition to the theory had not yet gathered serious head- 
way. There is record^ of a play poking fun at the system and 
its originator, written by the Elbing schoolmaster (a Dutch 
refugee from the Inquisition) and given in 1531 by the villagers 
at Elbing (3 miles from Frauenburg). Elbing and Ermeland 
were hostile to each other, Copernicus was well known in Elbing 
though probably from afar, for there seems to have been almost 
no personal intercourse between canons and people, and the 
spread of Luther's teachings had intensified the hostility of the 
villagers towards the Church and its representatives. But not 
until Giordano Bruno made the Copernican system the starting- 
point of his philosophy was the Roman Catholic Church seriously 
aroused to combat it. Possibly Osiander's preface turned oppo- 
sition aside, and certainly the non-acceptance of the system as a 
whole by Tycho Brahe, the leading astronomer of Europe at 
that time, made people slovv^ to consider it. 

'Holden in Pop. Set., 119. 
^Prowe: 11, 233-244. 



33 



CHAPTER III. 

The Later Development and Scientific Defense of the 
CoPERNicAN System. 

COPERNICUS accomplished much, but even his genius couUl 
not far outrun the times in which he Hved. When one real- 
izes that not only all the astronomers before him, but he and his 
immediate successor, Tycho Brahe, made all their observations 
and calculations unaided by even the simplest telescope, by loga- 
rithms or by pendulum clocks for accurate measurement of 
time,^ one marvels not at their errors, but at the greatness of 
their genius in rising above such difficulties. This lack of mate- 
rial aids makes the work of Tycho Brahe,- accounted one of the 
greatest observers that has ever lived,^ as notable in its way per- 
haps as that of Copernicus. 

His life^ was a somewhat romantic one. Born of noble family 
on December 14th, 1546, at Knudstrup in Denmark, Tyge 
Brahe, the second of ten children,^ was early practically adopted 
by his father's brother. His family wished him to become a 
statesman and sent him in 1559 to the university at Copenhagen 
to prepare for that career. A partial eclipse of the sun on 
August 21st, 1560 as foretold by the astronomers thrilled the 
lad and determined him to study a science that could foretell 
the future and so affect men's lives.® When he was sent to 
Leipsic with a tutor in 1562 to study law, he devoted his time 



'Burckhardt: 8. 

^The two standard lives of Tycho Brahe are the Vita Tychonis Brahei 
by Gassendi (1655) till recently the sole source of information, and 
Dreyer's Tycho Brahe (1890) based not only on Gassendi but on the 
documentary evidence disclosed by the researches of the 19th century. 
For Tycho's works I have used the Opera Omnia published at Frank- 
fort in 1648. The Danish Royal Scientific Society has issued a reprint 
(1901) of the rare 1573 edition of the De Nova Stella. 

'Bridges: 206. *Dreyer: 11-84. 

'Gassendi: 2. 'Dreyer: 13. 

33 



and money to the study of mathematics and astronomy. Two 
years later when eighteen years of age, he resolved to perform 
anew the task of Hipparchos and Ptolemy and make a catalogue 
of the stars more accurate than their 's. His family hotly 
opposed these plans ; and for six years he wandered through the 
German states, now at Wittenberg, now at Rostock (where he 
fought the duel in which he lost part of his nose and had to 
have it replaced by one of gold and silver)^ or at Augsburg — 
everywhere working on his chosen subjects. But upon his 
return to Denmark (1570) he spent two years on chemistry and 
medicine, till the startling appearance of the New Star in the 
constellation of Cassiopsea (November, 1572) recalled him to 
what became his Hfe work.^ 

Through the interest and favor of King Frederick II, he was 
given the island of Hveen near Elsinore, with money to build 
an observatory and the pledge of an annual income from the 
state treasury for his support.^ There at Uraniborg from 1576 
to 1597 he and his pupils made the great catalogue of the stars, 
and studied comets and the moon. When he was forced to leave 
Hveen by the hostility and the economical tendencies of the 
young king,* after two years of w^andering he accepted the invi- 
tation of the Emperor Rudolphus and established himself at 
Prague in Bohemia. Among his assistants at Prague was young 
Johann Kepler who till Tycho's death (on October 24, 1601) 
was his chief helper for twenty months, and who afterwards 
completed his observations, publishing the results in the Rudol- 
phine Tables of 1627. 

This "Phoenix among Astronomers" — as Kepler calls him,^ — 
was the father of modern practical astronomy.® He also pro-, 
pounded a third system of the universe, a compromise between 
the Ptolemaic and the Copernican. In this the Tychonic sys- 
tem,^ the earth is motionless and is the center of the orbits of 
the sun, the moon, and the sphere of the fixed stars, while the 



'Gassendi: 9-10. 

^Dreyer: 38-44. ^bid : 84. *Ibid: 234-5. 

'Kepler: TabulcE Rudolphincr. Title page. 

^Dreyer: 317-363. 

'As stated in his Book on the Comet of 1577 (pub. 1588). 

34 



sun is the center of the orbits of the five planets/ Mercury and 
Venus move in orbits w^ith radii shorter than the sun's radius, 
and the other three planets include the earth within their cir- 
cuits. This system was in harmony with the Bible and 
accounted as satisfactorily by geometry as either of the other 
two systems for the observed phenomena.- To Tycho Brahe, 
the Ptolemaic system was too complex,^ and the Copernican 
absurd, the latter because to account for the absence of stellar 
parallax it left vacant and purposeless a vast space between 
Saturn and the sphere of the fixed stars,^ and because Tycho's 
observations did not show any trace of the stellar parallax that 
must exist if the earth moves. ^ 

Though Tycho thus rejected the Copernican theory, his own 
proved to be the stepping stone toward the one he rejected,*^ for 
by it and by his study of comets he completely destroyed the 
ideas of solid crystalline spheres to the discredit of the scholas- 
tics ; and his promulgation of a third theory of the universe 
helped to diminish men's confidence in authority and to stimu- 
late independent thinking. 

Copernicus worked out his system by mathematics with but 
slight aid from his own observations. It was a theory not yet 
proven true. Tycho Brahe, though denying its validity, con- 
tributed in his mass of painstaking, accurate observations the 
raw material of facts to be worked up by Kepler into the great 
laws of the planets attesting the fundamental truth of the 
Copernican hypothesis. 

Johann Kepler^ earned for himself the proud title of *'law- 
maker for the universe" in defiance of his handicaps of ill- 
health, family troubles, and straitened finances. Born in Weil, 
Wurtemberg, (December 27, 1571) of noble but indigent par- 



'Dreyer: 168-9. 
^Schiaparelli in Snyder : 165. 
'Brahe : Op. Om., pt. I, p. 337. *Ibid : 409-410. 
'The Tychonic system has supporters to this day. See chap. viii. 
"Dreyer: 181. 

^The authoritative biography is the Vita by Frisch in vol. VIII, pp. 
668-1028 of Op. Om. Kep. 
"Frisch: VIII, 718. 

35 



ents, he was a sickly child unable for years to attend school 
regularly. He finally left the monastary school in Mulifontane 
in 1586 and entered the university at Tubingen to stay for four 
and a half years. There he studied philosophy, mathematics, 
and theology (he was a Lutheran) receiving the degree of Mas- 
ter of Arts in 1591. While at the university he studied under 
Msestlin, professor of mathematics and astronomy, and a 
believer in the Copernican theory. Because of Maestlin's teach- 
ing Kepler developed into a confirmed and enthusiastic adherent 
to the new doctrine. 

In 1594 he reluctantly abandoned his favorite study, philoso- 
phy, and accepted a professorship in mathematics at Graetz in 
Styria. Two years later he published his first work : Prodromes 
Dissertationum continens mysterium cosmographicum etc. 
(1596) in which he sought to prove that the Creator in arrang- 
ing the universe had thought of the five regular bodies which 
can be inscribed in a sphere according to which He had regu- 
lated the order, the number and the proportions of the heavens 
and their movements.^ The book is important not only because 
of its novelty, but because it gave the Copernican doctrine public 
explanation and defense.- Kepler himself valued it enough to 
reprint it with his Harmon'ia Miindi twenty-five years later. 
And it won for him appreciative letters from various scientists, 
notably from Tycho Brahe and Galileo.-^ 

As Kepler, a Lutheran, was having difficulties in Graetz, a 
Catholic city, he finally accepted Tycho's urgent invitation to 
come to Prague.^ He came early in 1600, and after some 
adjustments had been made between the two,-^ he and his family 
settled with Tycho that autumn to remain till the latter's death 
the following November. Kepler himself then held the office 
of imperial mathematician by appointment for many years there-" 
after.® 

With the researches of Tycho's lifetime placed at his disposal, 
Kepler worked out two of his three great planetary laws from 



'Delambre: Astr. Mod. 314-315. 

^^Frisch: VIII, 999. 'Ibid: VIII, 696. *Ibid : VIII. 699-715. 

^Dreyer: 290-309. •'Frisch : VIII, 715. 

36 



Tycho's observations of the planet Mars. Yet, as M. Bertrand 
remarks/ it was well for Kepler that his material was not too ac- 
curate or its variations (due to the then unmeasured force of at- 
traction) might have hindered him from proving his laws; and 
luckily for him the earth's orbit is so nearly circular that in 
calculating the orbit of Mars to prove its elliptical form, he 
could base his work on the earth's orbit as a circle without 
vitiating his results for Mars.' That a planet's orbit is an ellipse 
and not the perfect circle was of course a triumph for the new 
science over the scholastics and Aristotelians. But they had 
yet to learn what held the planets in their courses. 

From Kepler's student days under Msestlin when as the sub- 
ject of his disputation he upheld the Copernican theory, to his 
death in 1630, he was a staunch supporter of the new teaching. "* 
In his Epitome Astronomic^ Copernicance (1616) he answered 
objections to it at length.* He took infinite pains to convert 
his friends to the new system. It was in vain that Tycho on his 
deathbed had urged Kepler to carry on their work not on the 
Copernican but on the Tychonic scheme.^ 

Kepler had reasoned out according to physics the laws by 
which the planets moved.^ In Italy at this same time Galileo 
with his optic tube (invented 1609) was demonstrating that 
Venus had phases even as Copernicus had declared, that Jupiter 
had satellites, and that the moon was scarred and roughened — 
ocular proof that the old system with its heavenly perfection in 
number (7 planets) and in appearance must be cast aside. With- 
in a year after Galileo's death Newton was born^ (January 4, 
1643). His demonstration of the universal application of the 
law of gravitation (1687) was perhaps the climax in the devel- 



'Bertrand: p. 870-1. 

^The two laws first appeared in 1609 in his Physica Coelestis tradita 
commentarius de motu stellco martis. (Frisch : VIII, 964.) The third 
he enunciated in his Harmonia Mundi, 1619. (Ibid: VIII, 1013-1017.) 

^"Cor et animam meam" : Kepler's expression in regard to the Coper- 
nician theory. Ibid: VIII, 957. 

Tbid: VIII, 838. ^Ibid: VIII, 742. 

^Kepler: Op. Om.; I, 106: Prcsfatio ad Lectorem. 

'Berry: 210. 

37 



opment of the Copemican system. Complete and final proof 
was adding in the succeeding years by Roemer's (1644-1710) 
discovery of the velocity of light, by Bradley's (1693-1762) 
study of its aberration/ by Bessel's discovery of stellar paral- 
lax in 1838/ and by Foucault's experimental demonstration of 
the earth's axial motion with a pendulum in 1851.^ 



^Berry: 265. 'Ibid: 359. 
'Jacoby: 89. 



38. 



PART TWO 

THE RECEPTION OF THE COPERNICAN THEORY. 

CHAPTER I. 
Opinions and Arguments in the Sixteenth Century. 

DURING the life-time of Copernicus, Roman Catholic 
churchmen had been interested in his work: Cardinal 
Schonberg wrote for full information, Widmanstadt reported 
on it to Pope Clement VII and Copernicus had dedicated his 
book to Pope Paul III.^ But after his death, the Church 
authorities apparently paid little heed to his theory until some 
fifty years later when Giordano Bruno forced it upon their 
attention in his philosophical teachings. Osiander's preface had 
probably blinded their eyes to its implications. 

The Protestant leaders were not quite so urbane in their atti- 
tude. While Copernicus was still alive, Luther is reported^ to 
have referred to this "new astrologer" who sought to prove that 
the earth and not the firmament swung around, saying: "The 
fool will overturn the whole science of astronomy. But as the 
Holy Scriptures state, Joshua bade the sun stand still and not 
the earth." Melancthon was more interested in this new idea, 
perhaps because of the influence of Rheticus, his colleague in 
the University of Wittenberg and Copernicus's great friend and 
supporter ; but he too preferred not to dissent from the accepted 
opinion of the ages.^ Informally in a letter to a friend he 



^See before, p. 30. 

'Luther : Tischreden; IV, 575 ; "Der Narr will die ganze Kunst Astron- 
omiae umkehren. Aber wie die heilige Schrift anzeigt, so heiss Josua 
die Sonne still stehen, und nicht das Erdreich." 

^"Non est autem hominis bene instituti dissentire a consensu tot sae- 
culorum." Prsefatio Philippi Melanthonis, 1531, in Sacro-Busto: Libel- 
Itts de Sphcera (no date). 

39 



implies the absurdity of the new teaching/ and in his Initia 
DoctrincB Physicce he goes to some pains to disprove the new 
assumption not merely by mathematics but by the Bible, though 
with a kind of apology to other physicists for quoting the Divine 
Witness.- He refers to the phrase in Psalm XIX likening the 
sun in its course "to a strong man about to run a race," proving 
that the sun moves. Another Psalm states that the earth was 
founded not to be moved for eternity, and a similar phrase 
occurs in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. Then there was the 
miracle when Joshua bade the sun stand still. While this is a 
sufficient witness to the truth, there are other proofs : First, in 
the turning of a circumference, the center remains motionless. 
Next, changes in the length of the day and of the seasons would 
ensue, were the position of the earth in the universe not central, 
and it would not be equidistant from the two poles. (He has 
previously disposed of infinity by stating that the heavens 
revolve around the pole, which could not happen if a line drawn 
from the center of the universe were infinitely projected).'^ 
Furthermore, the earth must be at the center for its shadow 
to fall upon the moon in an eclipse. He refers next to the Aris- 
totelian statement that to a simple body belongs one motion : 
the earth is a simple body ; therefore it can have but one motion. 
What is true of the parts applies to the whole; all the parts of 
the earth are borne toward the earth and there rest ; therefore 
the whole earth is at rest. Quiet is essential to growth. Lastly, 
if the earth moved as fast as it must if it moves at all, every- 
thing would fly to pieces.^ 

"'Vidi dialogum et fui dissuassor editionis. Fabula per sese paulatim 
consilescet; sed quidam putant esse egregiam katorthoma rem tarn ab- 
surdam ornare, sicut ille Sarmaticus Astronomis qui movet terram et 
figet solem. Profecto sapientes gubernatores debereiit ingeniorum pet- 
ulantia cohercere." Epistola B. Mithohio, 16 Oct. 1541. P. Melancthon : 
Opera : IV, 679. 

'"Quamquam autem rideiit aliqui Physicum testimonia divina citantem, 
tamen nos honestum esse censemus, Philosophiam conferre ad coelestia 
dicta, et in tanta caligine humanae mentis autoritatem divinam con- 
sulere ubicunque possumus." Melancthon: Initia Doctrince Physicce: 
Bk. I, 63. 

Tbid: 60. 

*Ibid: 59-67. 
40 



Melancthon thus sums up the usual arguments from the 
Scriptures, from Aristotle, Ptolemy and the then current 
physics, in opposition to this theory. Not only did he publish 
his own text-book on physics, but he republished Sacrobosco's 
famous introduction to astronomy, writing for it a preface urg- 
ing diligent study of this little text endorsed by so many genera- 
tions of scholars. 

Calvin, the great teacher of the Protestant Revolt, apparently 
was little touched by this new intellectual current.^ He did 
write a semi-popular tract- against the so called ''judicial" astro- 
logy, then widely accepted, which he, like Luther, condemns as 
a foolish superstition, though he values "la vraie science d'astro- 
logie" from which men understand not merely the order and 
place of the stars and planets, but the causes of things. In his 
Commentaries, he accepts the miracle of the sun's standing still 
at Joshua's command as proof of the faith Christ commended, 
so strong that it will remove mountains ; and he makes reference 
only to the time-honored Ptolemaic theory in his discussion of 
Psalm XIX.^ 

For the absolute authority of the Pope the Protestant leaders 
substituted the absolute authority of the Bible. It is not strange, 
then, that they ignored or derided a theory as yet unsupported 
by proof and so difficult to harmonize with a literally accepted 
Bible. 

How widespread among the people generally did this theory 
become in the years immediately following the publication of the 
De Revohitionibtisf M. Flammarion, in his Vie de Copernic 
(1872), refers* to the famous clock in the Strasburg Cathedral 
as having been constructed by the University of Strasburg in 
protest against the action taken by the Holy Office against 



^Farrar: Hist, of Interpretation: Preface; xviii : "Who," asks Calvin, 
"will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the 
Holy Spirit?" 

^Calvin: Oeuvres Frangois: Traite . . . contre I'Astrologie ; 110-112. 

^Calvin: Oy>. Om. in Corpus Reformatorum: vol. 25; 499-500; vol. 59; 
195-196. 

*P. 78-79: "Ce planetaire . . . represente le ^ysteme du monde tel qu'il 
a ete explique par Copernic." 



Galileo, (though the clock was constructed in 1571 and Galileo 
was not condemned until 1633). This astronomical clock con- 
structed only thirty years after the death of Copernicus, he 
claims represented the Copernican system of the universe with 
the planets revolving around the sun, and explained clearly :n 
the sight of the people what was the thought of the makers. 
Lest no one should miscomprehend, he adds, the portrait of 
Copernicus was placed there with this inscription: Nicolai 
Copernici vera effigies, ex ipsius autographo depicta. 

This would be important evidence of the spread of the theory 
were it true. But M. Flammarion must have failed to see a 
brief description of the Strasburg Clock written in 1856 by 
Charles Schwilgue, son of the man who renovated its mechan- 
ism in 1838-1842. He describes the clock as it was before his 
father made it over and as it is today. Originally constructed 
in 1352, it was replaced in 1571 by an astrolabe based on the 
Ptolemaic system; six hands with the zodiacal signs of the 
planets gave their daily movements and, together with a seventh 
representing the sun, revolved around a map of the world. ^ 
When M. Schwilgue repaired the clock in 1838, he changed it 
to harmonize with the Copernican system. - 

But within eighteen years after the publication of the 
De Revolutionibus, proof of its influence is to be found in such 
widely separated places as London and the great Spanish Uni- 
versity of Salamanca. In 1551, Robert Recorde, court physician 
to Edward and to Mary and teacher of mathematics, published 
in London his Castle of Knowledge, an introduction to astro- 
nomy and the first book printed in England describing the 
Copernican system.^ He evidently did not consider the times 
quite ripe for a full avowal of his own allegiance to the new 
doctrine, but the remarks of the Maister and the Scholler are 
worth repeating:* 



^Schwilgue : p. 15. ^Ibid : p. 48. 

^Dict. of Nat. Biog: "Recorde." 

^Quoted (p. 135), from the edition of 1596 in the library of Mr, George 
A. Plimpton. See also Recorde's Whetstone of Witte (1557) as cited 
by Berry, 127. 

42 



"Maister: . . . howbeit Copernicus a man of great learning, 
of much experience, and of wonderfull diligence in observation, 
hath renewed the opinion of Aristarchus Samius, affirming that 
the earth, not onely moveth circularly about his owne centre, 
but also may be, yea and is, continually out of the precise centre 
of the world eight and thirty hundred thousand miles : but be- 
cause the understanding of that controversie depends of pro- 
founder knowledge than in this Introduction may be uttered 
conveniently, I wil let it passe til some other time. 

**Scholler: Nay sit, in good faith, I desire not to heare 
such vaine fantasies, so farre against the common reason, and 
repugnant to the content of all the learned multitude of Writers, 
and therefore let it passe for ever and a day longer. 

"Maister: You are too yong to be a good judge in so great 
a matter : it passeth farre your learning, and their's also, 
that are much better learned than you, to improuve his supposi- 
tion by good arguments, and therefore you were best condemne 
nothing that you do not well understand: but an other time, as 
1 saide, I will so declare his supposition, that you shall not onely 
wonder to heare it, but also peradventure be as earnest then to 
credite it, as you are now to condemne it: in the meane season 
let us proceed forward in our former order ..." 

This little book, reprinted in 1556 and in 1596, and one of the 
most popular of the mathematical writings in England during 
that century, must have interested the English in the new doc- 
trine even before Bruno's emphatic presentation of it to them in 
the eighties. 

Yet the English did not welcome it cordially. One of the 
most popular books of this period was Sylvester's translation 
(1591) of DuBartas's The Divine Weeks which appeared in 
France in 1578, a book loved especially by Milton.^ DuBartas 
writes •} 

"Those clerks that think — think how absurd a jest! 
That neither heavens nor stars do turn at all, 
Nor dance around this great, round earthly ball, 
But the earth itself, this massy globe of our's, 
Turns round about once every twice twelve hours ! 
And we resemble land-bred novices 
New brought aboard to venture on the seas ; 
Who at first launching from the shore suppose 
The ship stands still and that the firm earth goes." 



^DuBartas: The Divine Weeks (Sylvester's trans, edited by Haight) 
Preface, pp. xx-xxiii and note. 
^Op. cit: 72. 43 



Quite otherwise was the situation in the sixteenth century at 
the University of Salamanca. A new set of regulations for the 
University, drawn up at the King's order by Bishop Covar- 
rubias, was published in 1561. It contained the provision in 
the curriculum that "Mathematics and Astrology are to be given 
in three years, the first, Astrology, the second, Euclid, Ptolemy 
or Copernicus ad vota audientkim" which also indicates, as 
Vicente de la Fuente points out, that at this University "the 
choice of the subject-matter to be taught lay not with the 
teachers but with the students, a rare situation."^ One wonders 
what happened there when the professors and students received 
word- from the Cardinal Nuncio at Madrid in 1633 that the 
Congregations of the Index had decreed the Copernican doc- 
trine was thereafter in no way to be held, taught or defended. 

One of the graduates of this University, Father Zuiiiga,^ 
(better known as Didacus a Stunica), wrote a commentary on 
Job that was Hcensed to be printed in 1579, but was not pub- 
lished until 1584 at Toledo. Another edition appeared at Rome 
seven years later. It evidently was widely read for it was con- 
demned donee eorrigatur by the Index in 1616 and the mathema- 
tical literature of the next half century contains many allusions 
to his remarks on Job : IX : 6 ; "Who shaketh the earth out of 
her place, and the pillars thereof tremble." After commenting 
here upon the greater clarity and simplicity of the Copernican 
theory, Didacus a Stunica then states that the theory is not con- 
tradicted by Solomon in Ecclesiastes, as that "text signifieth no 
more but this, that although the succession of ages, and genera- 
tions of men on earth be various, yet the earth itself is still one 
and the same, and continueth without any sensible variation" . . . 
and "it hath no coherence with its context (as Philosophers 
show) if it be expounded to speak of the earth's immobility. 
The motion that belongs to the earth by way of speech is 
assigned to the sun even by Copernicus himself, and those who 
are his followers ... To conclude, no place can be produced 



^La Fuente ; Historia de la Universidades . . . de Espana : II, 314. 
'Doc. 86 in Favaro; 130. 

^Diccionario Encichpedico Hispano-Americano Ic literatura, ciencias 
y artes (Barcelona, 1898). 

44 



out of Holy Scriptures which so clearly speaks the earth's 
immobility as this doth its mobility. Therefore this text of 
which we have spoken is easily reconciled to this opinion. And 
to set forth the wonderful power and wisdom of God who can 
indue the frame of the whole earth (it being of monstrous 
weight by nature) with motion, this our Divine pen-man added ; 
'And the pillars thereof tremble :' As if he would teach us, from 
the doctrine laid down, that it is moved from its foundations."^ 
French thinkers, like the English, did not encourage the new- 
doctrine at this time. Montaigne" was characteristically indif- 
ferent : "What shall we reape by it, but only that we neede not 
care which of the two it be? And who knoweth whether a 
hundred yeares hence a third opinion will arise which happily 
shall overthrow these two prascedent?" The famous political 
theorist, Jean Bodin, (1530-1596), was as thoroughly opposed 
to it as DuBartas had been. In the last year of his life, Bodin 
wrote his Universcc Naturcu Theatrum'^ in which he discussed 
the origin and composition of the universe and of the animal, 
vegetable, mineral and spiritual kingdoms. These five books 
(or divisions) reveal his amazing ideas of geology, physics and 
astronomy while at the same time they show a mind thoroughly 
at home in Hebrew and Arabian literature as well as in the 
classics. His answer to the Copernican doctrine is worth quot- 
ing to illustrate the attitude of one of the keenest thinkers in a 
brilHant era : 

''Theorist: Since the sun's heat is so intense that we read 
it has sometimes burned crops, houses and cities in Scythia,'' 
would it not be more reasonable that the sun is still and the 
earth indeed revolves? 



^Quoted in Salusbury: Math. Coll.: I; 468-470 (1661), as a work inac- 
cessible to most readers at that time because of its extreme rarity. It 
remained on the Index until the edition of 1835. 

"Montaigne : £jja3'.y : Bk: II, c. 2: An Apologie of Raymonde Sebondc 
(II, 352). 

^This book, published at Frankfort in 1597, was translated into French 
by M. FougeroUes and printed in Lyons that same year. It has become 
extremely rare since its "atheistic atmosphere" (Peignot; Dictionnaire) 
caused the Roman Church to place it upon the Index by decree of 1628, 
where it has remained to this daj^ 

"Cromer in History of Poland. 

45 



"Mystic: Such was the old idea of Philolaus, Timaeus, 
Ecphantes, Seleucus, Aristarchus of Samos, Archimedes and 
Eudoxus, which Copernicus has renewed in our time. But it 
can easily be refuted by its shallowness although no one has 
done it thoroughly. 

"The. : What arguments do they rely on who hold that 
the earth is revolved and that the sun forsooth is still? 

"Mys. : Because the comprehension of the human mind 
cannot grasp the incredible speed of the heavenly spheres and 
especially of the tenth sphere which must be ten times greater 
than that of the eighth, for in twenty- four hours it must tra- 
verse 469,562,845 miles, so that the earth seems lika a dot in the 
universe. This is the chief argument. Besides this, we get rid 
entirely of epicycles in representing the motions of the piaiictr 
and what is taught concerning the motion of trepidation in the 
eighth sphere vanishes. Also, there is no need for the ninth and 
tenth spheres. There is one argument which they have omitted 
but which seems to me more efficacious than any, viz. : rest is 
nobler than movement, and that celestial and divine things have 
a stable nature while elemental things have motion, disturbance 
and unrest; therefore it seems more probable that the latter 
move rather than the former. But while serious absurdities 
result from the idea of Eudoxus, far more serious ones result 
from that of Copernicus. 

"The. : What are these absurdities ? 

"Mys. : Eudoxus knew nothing of trepidation, so his idea 
seems to be less in error. But Copernicus, in order to uphold 
his own hypothesis, claims the earth has three motions, its 
diurnal and annual ones, and trepidation ; if we add to these the 
pull of weight towards the center, we are attributing four 
natural motions to one and the same body. If this is granted, 
then the very foimdations of physics must fall into ruins; for 
all are agreed upon this, that each natural body has but one 
motion of its own, and that all others are said to be either violent 
or voluntary. Therefore, since he claims the earth is agitated 
by four motions, one only can be its own, the others must be 
confessedly violent ; yet nothing violent in nature can endure con- 
tinuously. Furthermore the earth is not moved by water, much 
less by the motion of air or fire in the way we have stated the 
heavens are moved by the revolutions of the enveloping heavens. 
Copernicus further does not claim that all the heavens are 
immobile but that some are moved, that is, the moon. Mercury, 
Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. But why such diversity? 
No one in his senses, or imbued with the slightest knowledge of 
physics, will ever think that the earth, heavy and unwieldy from 

46 



its own weight and mass, staggers up and down around its own 
center and that of the sun ; for at the slightest jar of the earth, 
we would see cities and fortresses, towns and mountains thrown 
dow^n. A certain courtier Aulicus, when some astrologer 
in court was upholding Copernicus's idea before Duke Albert 
of Prussia, turning to the servant who was pouring the Faler- 
nian, said: 'Take care that the flagon is not spilled. '"* For if 
the earth were to be moved, neither an arrow shot straight up, 
nor a stone dropped from the top of a tower would fall per- 
pendicularly, but either ahead or behind. With this argument 
Ptolemy refuted Eudoxus. But if we search into the secrets of 
the Hebrews and penetrate their sacred sanctuaries, all these 
arguments can easily be confirmed ; for when the Lord of Wis- 
dom said the sun swept in its swift course from the eastern 
shore to the west, he added this : Terra vero stat setemam. 
Lastly, all things on finding places suitable to their natures, 
remain there, as Aristotle writes. Since therefore the earth 
has been alloted a place fitting its nature, it cannot be whirled 
around by other motion than its own. 

"The. : I certainly agree to all the rest with you, but Aris- 
totle's law I think involves a paralogism, for by this argument 
the heavens should be immobile since they are in a place fitting 
their nature. 

"Mys. : You argue subtly indeed, but in truth this argument 
does not seem necessary to me ; for what Aristotle admitted, 
that, while forsooth all the parts of the firmament changed their 
places, the firmament as a whole did not, is exceedingly absurd. 
For either the whole heaven is at rest or the whole heaven is 
moved. The senses themselves disprove that it is at rest ; there- 
fore it is moved. For it does not follow that if a body is not 
moved away from its place, it is not moved in that place. Fur- 
thermore, since we have the most certain proof of the movement 
of trepidation, not only all the parts of the firmament, but also 
the eight spheres, must necessarily leave their places and move 
up and down, forward and back."^ 

This was the opinion of a profound thinker and experienced 
man of aflFairs living when Tycho Brahe and Bruno v^ere still 
alive and Kepler and Galileo were beginning their astronomical 
investigations. But he was not alone in his views, as we shall 



^Cromer in History of Poland.* 

*I could not find this reference in either of Martin Kromer's books; 
De Origine et Rebus Gestis Polonorum, ad 1511, or in his Res Publico 
sive Status Regni Polom(B. 

^Bodin; Univ. Nat. Theatrum: Bk. V, sec. 2 (end). 

47 



see; for at the close of the sixteenth century, the Copernican 
doctrine had few avowed supporters. The Roman Church was 
still indifferent; the Protestants clinging to the literal interpre- 
tation of the Bible were openly antagonistic; the professors as 
a whole were too Aristotelian to accept or pay much attention 
to this novelty, except Kepler and his teacher Msestlin (though 
the latter refused to uphold it in his text-book) ;^ while astron- 
omers and mathematicians who realized the insuperable objec- 
tions to the Ptolemaic conception, welcomed the Tychonic sys- 
tem as a via media; and the common folk, if they heard of it 
at all, must have ridiculed it because it was so plainly opposed 
to what they saw in the heavens every day. In the same 
way their intellectual superiors exclaimed at the "delirium" of 
of those supporting such a notion.- One thinker, however w^as 
to see far more in the doctrine than Copernicus himself had 
conceived, and by Giordano Bruno the Roman Church was to 
be aroused. 



'Delambre; Astr. Mod.: I, 663. 

"Justus-Lipsius ; Physiologies Stoicorum; Bk. II; dissert. 19; (Dedica- 
tion 1604, Louvain), (IV> 947) ; "Vides deliria, quomodo aliter appel- 
lent?" 



48 



CHAPTER ir. 

Bruno and Galileo. 

WHEN the Roman Catholic authorities awoke to the dan- 
gers of the new teaching, they struck with force. The 
first to suffer was the famous monk-philosopher, Giordano 
Bruno, whose trial by the Holy Office was premonitory of 
trouble to come for Galileo.^ 

After an elementary education at Naples near his birth-place, 
Nola," Filippo Bruno^ entered the Dominican monastery in 1562 
or 1563 when about fourteen years old, assuming the name 
Giordano at that time. Before 1572, when he entered the priest- 
hood, he had fully accepted the Copernican theory which later 
became the basis of all his philosophical thought. Bruno soon 
showed he was not made for the monastic life. Various pro- 
cesses were started against him, and fleeing to Rome he aban- 
doned his monk's garments and entered upon the sixteen years 
of wandering over Europe, a peripatetic teacher of the philos- 
ophy of an infinite universe as deduced from the Copernican 
doctrine and thus in a way its herald.* He reached Geneva in 
1579 (where he did not accept Calvinism as was formerly 
thought),^ but decided before many months had passed that it 
was wise to depart elsewhere because of the unpleasant position 
in which he found himself there. He had been brought before 
the Council for printing invectives against one of the professors. 



'Berti:285. 'Mclntyre : 3-15. 

'Four lives of Bruno have been written within the last seventy-five 
years. The first is Jordano Bruno by Christian Bartholmess (2 vol., Paris 
1846). The next, Vita dt Giordano Bruno da Nola by Domenico Berti 
(1868, Turin), quotes in full the ofificial documents of his trial. Frith's 
Life of Giordano Bruno (London, 1887), has been rendered out of date 
by J. L. Mclntyre's Giordano Bruno (London, 1903), which includes a 
critical bibliography. In addition, W. R. Thayer's Throne Makers (New 
York, 1899), gives translations of Bruno's confessions to the Venetian 
Inquisition. Bruno's Latin works {Opera Latina Conscripta), have been 
republished by Fiorentino (3 vol., Naples, 1879), and the Opere Italiane 
by Gentile (3 vol., Naples, 1907). 

^Bartholmess : I, 134. "'Libri : IV, 144. 

49 



pointing out some twenty of his errors. The Council sent him 
to the Consistory, the governing body of the church, where a 
formal sentence of excommunication was passed against him. 
When he apologized it was withdrawn. Probably a certain 
stigma remained, and he left Geneva soon thereafter with a 
warm dislike for Calvinism. After lecturing at the University 
of Toulouse he appeared in Paris in 1581, where he held an 
extraordinary readership. Two years later he was in England, 
for he lectured at Oxford during the spring months and defend- 
ed the Copernican theory before the Polish prince Alasco during 
the latter's visit there in June.^ 

To Bruno belongs the glory of the first public proclamation 
in England of the new doctrine,^ though only Gilbert^ and pos- 
sibly Wright seem to have accepted it at the time. Upon 
Bruno's return to London, he entered the home of the French 
ambassador as a kind of secretary, and there spent the happiest 
years of his life till the ambassador's recall in October, 1585. 
It was during this period that he wrote some of his most famous 
books. In La Cetm de la Ceneri he defended the Copernican 
theory, incidentally criticising the Oxford dons most severely,* 
for which he apologized in De la Causa, Principio et Uno. He 
developed his philosophy of an infinite universe in De VInfinito 
e Mondi, and in the Spaccio de la Bestia Trionphante "attacked 
all religions of mere credulity as opposed to religions of truth 
and deeds. "^ This last book was at once thought to be a biting 
attack upon the Roman Church and later became one of the 
grounds of the Inquisition's charges against him. During this 
time in London also, he came to know Sir Philip Sydney inti- 
mately, and Fulk Greville as well as others of that brilliant 
period. He may have known Bacon ;^ but it is highly improb- 
able that he and Shakespeare met,® or that Shakespeare ever 
was influenced by the other's philosophy.^ 

'Mclntyre : 16-40. ^Bartholmess : I, 134. 

'Gilbert: De Magnet e (London, 1600). *Berti: 369, Doc. XIII. 

*Beyersdorf : Giordano Bruno und Shakespear, 8-36. 

®Such passages as Troilus and Cressida: Act I, sc. 3; King John, Act 
III, sc. 1 ; and Merry Wives, Act III, sc. 2, indicate that Shakespeare 
accepted fully the Ptolemaic conception of a central, immovable earth. 
See also Beyer sdorf : op. cit. 

5© 



Leaving Paris soon after his return thither, Bruno wandered 
into southern Germany. At Marburg he was not permitted to 
teach, but at Wittenberg the Lutherans cordially welcomed him 
into the university. After a stay of a year and a half, he moved 
on to Prague for a few months, then to Helmstadt, Frankfort 
and Zurich, and back to Frankfort again where, in 1591, he 
received an invitation from a young Venetian patrician, Moecen- 
igo, to come to Venice as his tutor. He re-entered Italy, there- 
fore, in August, much to the amazement of his contemporaries. 
It is probable that Moecenigo was acting for the Inquisition.^ 
At any rate, he soon denounced Bruno to that body and in May, 
1592, surrendered him to it.- 

In his trial before the Venetian Inquisition," Bruno told the 
story of his life and stated his beliefs in answer to the charges 
against him, based mainly on travesties of his opinions. In this 
statement as well as in La Cend de le Ceneri, and in Dc Immen- 
so et Innumerahilis,^ Bruno shows how completely he had not 
merely accepted the Copernican doctrine, but had expanded it 
far beyond its author's conception. The universe according to 
Copernicus, though vastly greater than that conceived by Aris- 
totle and Ptolemy, was still finite because enclosed within the 
sphere of the fixed stars. Bruno declared that not only was the 
earth only a lesser planet, but ''this world itself was merely one 
^ an infinite number of particular worlds similar to this, and 
that all the planets and other stars are infinite worlds without 
number composing an infinite universe, so that there is a double 
infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe, and that of the 
multitude of worlds."^ How^ important this would be to the 
Church authorities may be realized by recalling the patristic 
doctrine that the universe was created for man and that his 
home is its center. Of course their cherished belief must be 
defended from such an attack, and naturally enough, the 
Copernican doctrine as the starting point of Bruno's theory of 



'Mclntyre: 68. 'Ibid: 47-72. 
""See official documents in Berti : 327-395. 

*Bruno : De hnmenso et Innumerabilis ; Lib. Ill, cap. 9 (vol. 1, pt. 1, 
380-386). 
'Thayer: 268. 



51 



an infinite universe was thus brought into question ;^ for, as M. 
Berti has said,- Bruno's doctrine was equally an astro-theology 
or a theological astronomy. 

The Roman Inquisition was not content to let the Venetian 
court deal with this arch heretic, but wrote in September, 1592, 
demanding his extradition. The Venetian body referred its con- 
sent to the state for ratification which the Doge and Council 
refused to grant. Finally, when the Papal Nuncio had repre- 
sented that Bruno was not a Venetian but a Neapolitan, and that 
cases against him were still outstanding both in Naples and in 
Rome, the state consented, and in February of the next year, 
Bruno entered Rome, a prisoner of the Inquisition. Nothing 
further is known about him until the Congregations took up his 
case on February 4th, 1599. Perhaps Pope Clement had hoped 
to win back to the true faith this prince of heretics.^ However 
Bruno stood firm, and early in the following year he was 
degraded, sentenced and handed over to the secular authorities, 
who burned him at the stake in the Campo di Fiori, February 
17, 1600.* All his books were put on the Index by decree of 
February 8, 1600, (where they remain to this day), and as a 
consequence they became extremely rare. It is well to remem- 
ber Bruno's fate, when considering Galileo's case, for Galileo'* 
was at that time professor of mathematics in the university of 
Padua and fully cognizant of the event. 

Galileo's father, though himself a skilled mathematician, had 



'Berti: 285. =^Ibid : 282. ^Fahie: 82-89. *Thayer: 299. 

^The publication of A. Favaro's Galileo e I'lnquisisione : Documenti del 
Processo GalUeiano . . . per la prima volta integralmente pubblicati, 
(Firenze, 1907), together with that of the National Edition (in 20 vols.) 
of Galileo's works, edited by Favaro (Firenze, completed 1909), renders 
somewhat obsolete all earlier lives of Galileo. The more valuable, how- 
ever, of these books are: Martin's Galilee (Paris, 1868), a scholarly 
Catholic study containing valuable bibliographical notes ; Anon. (Mrs. 
Olney) : Private Life of ■ Galileo, based largely on his correspondence 
with his daughter from which many extracts are given ; and von Gebler's 
Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (trans, by Mrs. Sturge, London, 
1879), which includes in the appendix the various decrees in the original. 
Fahie's Life of Galileo (London, 1903), is based on Favaro's researches 
and is reliable. The documents of the trial have been published in part 
by de I'Epinois, von Gebler and Berti. but Favaro's is the complete and 
authoritative edition. 

52 



intended that his son (born at Pisa, February 15, 1564), should 
be a cloth-dealer, but at length permitted him to study medicine 
instead at the university of Pisa, after an elementary education 
at the monastery of Vallombrosa near Florence. At the Tuscan 
Court in Pisa, Galileo received his first lesson in mathematics, 
which thereupon became his absorbing interest. After nearly 
four years he withdrew from the university to Florence and 
devoted himself to that science and to physics. His services as 
a professor at this time were refused by five of the Itahan uni- 
versities ; finally, in 1589, he obtained the appointment to the 
chair of physics at Pisa. He became so unpopular there, how- 
ever, through his attacks on the Aristotelian physics of the day, 
that after three years he resigned and accepted a similar posi- 
tion at Padua. ^ He remained here nearly eighteen years till his 
longing for leisure in which to pursue his researches, and the 
patronage of his good friend, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
brought him a professorship at the university of Pisa again, this 
time without obligation of residence nor of lecturing. He took 
up his residence in Florence in 1610; and later (1626), pur- 
chased a villa at Arcetri outside the city, in order to be near the 
convent where his favorite daughter "Suor Maria Celeste" was 
a religious. - 

During the greater part of his lectureship at Padua, Galileo 
taught according to the Ptolemaic cosmogony out of compliance 
with popular feeling, though himself a Copernican. In a letter 
to Kepler (August 4, 1597)^ he speaks of his entire acceptance 
of the new system for some years ; but not until after the appear- 
ance of the New Star in the heavens in 1604 and 1605, and the 
controversy that its appearance aroused over the Aristotelian 
notion of the perfect and unchangeable heavens, did he publicly 
repudiate the old scheme and teach the new. The only informa- 
tion we have as to how he came to adopt the Copernican scheme 
for himself is the account given by ''Sagredo," Galileo's spokes- 
man in the famous Dialogue on the Ti^'o Principal Systeins 
(1632): 



'Fahie: 20-40. ^Ibid: 121. 

'Galileo: Opere, X, 68. 



53 



''Being very young and having scarcely finished my course of 
Philosophy which I left ofif, as being set upon other employ- 
ments, there chanced to come into these parts a certain foreigner 
of Rostock, whose name as I remember, was Christianus Vur- 
stitius, a follower of Copernicus, who in an Academy made two 
or three lectures upon this point, to whom many fiock't as audi- 
tors ; but I thinking they went more for the novelty of the sub- 
ject than otherwise, did not go to hear him; for I had concluded 
with myself that that opinion could be no other than a solemn 
madnesse. And questioning some of those who had been there, 
I perceived they all made a jest thereof, except one, who told 
me that the business was not altogether to be laugh't at, and 
because this man was reputed by me to be very intelligent and 
wary, I repented that I was not there, and began from that time 
forward as oft as I met with anyone of the Copernican persua- 
sion, to demand of them, if they had always been of the same 
judgment ; and of as many as I examined, I found not so much 
as one, w^ho told me not that he had been a long time of the con- 
trary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as convinced by 
the reasons proving the same : and afterwards questioning them, 
one by one, to see whether they were well possest of the reasons 
of the other side, I found them all to be very ready and perfect 
in them; so that I could not truly say that they had took up this 
opinion out; of ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of 
their wits. On the contrary, of as many of the Peripateticks and 
Ptolemeans as I have asked (and out of curiosity I have talked 
with many) what pains they had taken in the Book of Coperni- 
cus, I found very few that had so much as superficially perused 
it; but of those whom. I thought, had understood the same, not 
one ; and moreover, I have enquired amongst the followers of 
the Peripatetick Doctrine, if ever any of them had held the con- 
trary opinion, and likewise found that none had. Whereupon 
considering that there was no man who followed the opinion of 
Copernicus that had not been first on the contrary side, and that 
was not very well acquainted with the reasons of Aristotle and 
Ptolemy ; and on the contrary, that there is not one of the fol- 
lowers of Ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of Coper- 
nicus, and that had left that to embrace this of Aristotle, con- 
sidering, I say, these things, I began to think that one, who 
leaveth an opinion imbued Avith his milk, and followed by very 
many, to take up another owned by very few, and denied by all 
the Schools, and that really seems a very great Parodox, must 
needs have been moved, not to say forced, by more powerful 
reasons. For this cause I am become very curious to dive, as 



54 



they say, into the bottom of this business . . and bring myself 
to a certainty in this subject."^ 

GaHleo's briUiant work in mechanics and his great popular- 
ity — for his lectures were thronged — combined with his skilled 
and witty attacks upon the accepted scientific ideas of the age, 
embittered and antagonized many who were both conservative 
and jealous.^ The Jesuits particularly resented his influence 
and power, for they claimed the leadership in the educational 
world and were jealous of intruders. Furthermore, they were 
bound by the decree of the fiftieth General Congregation of 
their society in 1593 to defend Aristotle, a decree strictly 
enforced.^ While a few of the Jesuits were friendly disposed 
to Galileo at first, the controversies in which he and they became 
involved and their bitter attacks upon him made him feel by 
1633 that they were among his chief enemies."^ 

Early in 1609, Galileo heard a rumor of a spy-glass having 
been made in Flanders, and proceeded to work one out for him- 
self according to the laws ofj perspective. The fifth telescope 
that he made magnified thirty diameters, and it was with such 
instruments of his own manufacture that he made in the next 
three years his famous discoveries : Jupiter's four satellites 
(which he named the Medicean Planets), Saturn's ''tripartite" 
character (the rings were not recognized as such for several 
decades thereafter), the stars of the Milky Way, the crescent 
form of Venus, the mountains of the. moon, many more fixed 
stars, and the spots on the sun. Popular interest waxed with 
each new discovery and from all sides came requests for tele- 
scopes ; yet there were those who absolutely refused even to look 
through a telescope lest they be compelled to admit Aristotle 
was mistaken, and others claimed that Jupiter's moons were 
merely defects in the instrument. The formal announcement 
of the first of these discoveries was made in the Sidereus Nuncius 
(1610), a book that aroused no little opposition. Kepler, how- 
ever, had it reprinted at once in Prague with a long apprecia- 
tive preface of his own.* 



"The Second Day' in Salusbury: Math. Coll. I, 110-111. 

^Fahie: 265. 

'Conway: 46-47. *Fahie : 77-126. 



55 



The following March Galileo went to Rome to show his dis- 
coveries and was received with the utmost distinction by princes 
and church dignitaries alike. A commission of four scientific 
members of the Roman College had previously examined his 
claims at Cardinal Bellarmin's suggestion, and had admitted 
their truth. Now Pope Paul V gave him long audiences ; the 
Academia dei Lincei elected him a member, and everywhere he 
was acclaimed. Nevertheless his name appears on the secret 
books of the Holy Of¥ice as early as May of that year (1611).^ 
Already he was a suspect. 

His Delle Macchie Solari (1611) brought on a sharp contest 
over the question of priority of discovery between him and the 
Jesuit father, Christopher Scheiner of Ingolstadt, from which 
Galileo emerged victorious and more disliked than before by that 
order. Opposition was becoming active ; Father Castelli, for 
instance, the professor of mathematics at Pisa and Galileo's inti- 
mate friend, was forbidden to discuss in his lectures the double 
motion of the earth or even to hint at its probability. This same 
father wrote to his friend early in December, 1613, to tell him of 
a dinner-table conversation on this matter at the Tuscan Court, 
then wintering at Pisa. Castelli told how the Dowager Grand 
Duchess Cristina had had her religious scruples aroused by a 
remark that the earth's motion must be wrong because it con- 
tradicted the Scriptures, a statement that he had tried to refute.- 
Galileo wrote in reply (December 21, 1613), the letter^ that was 
to cause him endless trouble, in which he marked out the boun- 
daries between science and religion and declared it a mistake to 
take the literal interpretation of passages in Scripture that were 
obviously written according to the understanding of the com- 
mon people. He pointed out in addition how futile the miracle 
of the sun's standing still was as an argument against the Coper- 
nican doctrine for, even according to the Ptolemaic system, not 
the sun but the primum mobile must be stayed for the day to be 
lengthened. 

Father Castelli allowed others to read and to copy this sup- 
posedly private letter ; copies went from hand to hand in Flor- 

^Doc. in Favaro : 13. 'Fahie : 149 

'Galileo: Opere, V, 281-288. 

56 



ence and discussion ran high. On the fourth Sunday in Decem- 
ber, 1614, Father Caccini of the Dominicans preached a sermon 
in the church of S. M. Novella on Joshua's miracle, in which he 
sharply denounced the Copernican doctrine taught by Galileo as 
heretical, so he believed/ The Copernicans found a Neapolitan 
Jesuit who replied to Caccini the following Sunday from the 
pulpit of the Duomo.^ 

In February (1615), came the formal denunciation of Galileo 
to the Holy Office at Rome by Father Lorini, a Dominican asso- 
ciate of Caccini's at the Convent San Marco. The father sent 
with his ''friendly warning," a copy of the letter to Castelli 
charging that it contained "many propositions which were either 
suspect or temerarious," and, he added, "though the Galileisti 
were good Christians they were rather stubborn and obstinate 
in their opinions."^ The machinery of the Inquisition began se- 
cretly to turn. The authorities failed to get the original of the 
letter, for Castelli had returned that to Galileo at the latter's re- 
quest.^ Pope Paul sent word to Father Caccini to appear before 
the Holy Office in Rome to depose on this matter of Galileo's 
errors "pro exoneratione suae conscientise."' This he did "freely" 
in March and was of course sworn to secrecy. He named a cer- 
tain nobleman, a Copernican, as the source of his information 
about Galileo, for he did not know the latter even by sight. This 
nobleman was by order of the Pope examined in November after 
some delay by the Inquisitor at Florence. His testimony was to 
the effect that he considered Galileo the best of Catholics.'' 

Meanwhile the Consultors of the Holy Office had examined 
Lorini 's copy of the letter and reported the finding of only three 
objectionable places all of which, they stated, could be amended 
by changing certain doubtful phrases ; otherwise it did not 
deviate from the true faith. It is interesting to note that the 
copy they had differed in many minor respects from the original 
letter, and in one place heightened a passage with which the 
Examiners found fault as imputing falsehood to the Scriptures 



'Doc. in Favaro: 48-49. 

^Doc. in Favaro : 49. ^Ibid : 38 : "amorevole avviso." 

"Ibid: 46, 47, 51. 'Ibid: 47. 'Ibid: 49. 



57 



although they are infalHble/ Gahleo's own statement ran that 
there were many passages in the Scriptures which according to 
the literal meaning of the words, "hanno aspetto diverso dal 
vero. . . " The copy read, "molte proposition! falso quanto al 
nudo senso delle parole." 

Rumors of trouble reached Galileo and, urged on by his 
friends, in 1615 he wrote a long formal elaboration of the earlier 
letter, addressing this one to the Dowager Grand Duchess, but 
he had only added fuel to the fire. At the end of the year he 
voluntarily went to Rome, regardless of any possible danger to 
himself, to see if he could not prevent a condemnation of the 
doctrine.- It came as a decided surprise to him to' receive an 
order to appear before Cardinal Bellarmin on February 26, 
1616,^ and there to learn that the Holy Office had already con- 
demned it two days before. He was told that the Holy Office 
had declared : first, "that the proposition that the sun is the cen- 
ter of the universe and is immobile is foolish and absurd in phil- 
osophy and formally heretical since it contradicts the express 
words of the Scriptures in many places, according to the mean- 
ing of the words and the common interpretation and sense of the 
Fathers and the doctors of theology ; and, secondly, that the 
proposition that the earth is not the center of the universe nor 
immobile receives the same censure in philosophy and in regard 
to its theological truth, it at least is erroneous in Faith. "^ 

Exactly what was said at that meeting between the two men 
became the crucial point in Galileo's trial sixteen years later, 
hence a somewhat detailed study is important. At the meeting 
of the Congregation on February 25th, the Pope ordered Cardi- 
nal Bellarmin to summon Galileo and, in the presence of a notary 
and witnesses lest he should prove recusant, warn him to aban- 
don the condemned opinion and in every way to abstain from 
teaching, defending or discussing it; if he did not acquiesce, he 
was to be imprisoned. "^ The Secret Archives of the Vatican 
contain a minute reporting this' interview^ (dated February 26, 
1616), in which the Cardinal is said to have ordered Galileo to 
relinquish this condemned proposition, "nee eam de csetero, 



' Ibid : 43-45, see original in Galileo : Opere, V, 281-285. 
'Doc. in Favaro: 78. 'Ibid: 61. 

58 



quo vis modo, teneat, doceat aut defendat, verbo aut scriptis," 
and that Galileo promised to obey.^ Rumors evidently were rife 
in Rome at the time as to what had happened at this secret inter- 
view, for Galileo wrote to the Cardinal in May asking for a 
statement of what actually had occurred so that he might silence 
his enemies. The Cardinal replied : 

"We, Robert Cardinal Bellarmin, having heard that Signor 
Galileo was calumniated and charged with having abjured 
in our hand, and also of being punished by salutary 
penance, and being requested to give the truth, state that the 
aforesaid Signor Galileo has not abjured in our hand nor in the 
hand of any other person in Rome, still less in any other place, 
so far as we know, any of his opinions and teachings, nor has 
he received salutary penance nor any other kind; but only was 
he informed of the declaration made by his Holiness and pub- 
lished by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, in which it is 
stated that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, — ^that the 
earth moves around the sun and that the sun stands in the center 
of the world without moving from the east to the west, is con- 
trary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended 
nor held (non si possa difendere ne tenere). And in witness of 
this w-e have written and signed these presents with our own 
hand, this 26th day of May, 1616. 

Robert Cardinal Bellarmin. "- 

Galileo's defense sixteen years later^ was that he had obeyed 
the order as given him by the Cardinal and that he had not 
"defended nor held" the doctrine in his Dialoghi but had refuted 
it. The Congregation answered that he had been ordered not 
only not to hold nor defend, but also not to treat in any wav 
(quo vis modo) this condemned subject. When Galileo dis- 
claimed all recollection of that phrase and produced the Cardi- 
nal's statement in support of his position, he was told that this 
document, far from lightening his guilt, greatly aggravated it 
since he had dared to deal with a subject that he had been 
informed was contrary to the Holy Scriptures.^ 

To return to 1616. On the third of March the Cardinal 
reported to the Congregation in the presence of the Pope that he 
had warned Galileo and that Galileo had acquiesced.' The Con- 

'Doc. in Favaro : 61-62. 

Tbid: 88. 'Ibid: 80-86. ^Ibid : 145. 'Ibid: 16. 

59 



gregation then reported its decree suspending "until corrected" 
"Nicolai Copernici De Revolutionibus Orbium Cselestium, et 
Didaci Astunica in Job," and prohibiting "Epistola Fratris PauH 
Antonii Foscarini CarmeHtae," together with all other books 
dealing with this condemned and prohibited doctrine. The Pope 
ordered this decree to be published by the Master of the Sacred 
Palace, which was done two days later.^ But this prohibition 
could not have been widely known for two or three years ; the 
next year Mulier pubHshed his edition of the De Revolutionibus 
at Amsterdam without a word of reference to it; in 1618 
Thomas Feyens, professor at Louvain, heard vague rumors of 
the condemnation and wondered if it could be true f and the 
following spring Fromundus, also at Louvain and later a noted 
antagonist of the new doctrine, wrote to Feyens asking: 

''What did I hear lately from you about the Copernicans ? 
That they have been condemned a year or two ago by our Holy 
Father, Pope Paul V? Until now I have known nothing about 
it; no more have this crowd of German and Italian scholars, 
very learned and, as I think, very Catholic, who admit with 
Copernicus that the earth is turned. Is it possible that after a 
lapse of time as considerable as this, we have nothing more than 
a rumor of such an event? I find it hard to believe, since nothing 
more definite has come from Italy. Definitions of this sort 
ought above all to be published in the universities where the 
learned men are to whom the danger of such an opinion is very 
great."^ 

Galileo meanwhile had retired to Florence and devoted him- 
self> to mechanical science, (of which his work is the founda- 
tion) though constantly harassed by much ill health and many 
family perplexities. At the advice of his friends, he allowed 
the attacks on the Copernican doctrine to go unanswered,* till 



^Doc. in Favaro : 16. ^Monchamp : 46. 

^Fromundus: De Cometa Anni 1618: chap. VII, p. 68. (From the pri- 
vate library of Dr. E. E. Slosson. A rare book which Lecky could not 
find. History of Rationalism in Europe, I, 280, note.) 

*In 1620 the Congregation issued the changes it required to have made 
in the De Revolutionibus. They are nine in all, and consist mainly in 
changing assertion of the earth's movement to hypothetical statement 
and in striking out a reference to the earth as a planet. Doc. in Favaro : 
140-141. See illustration, p. 61. 

6o 



,^ NICOLA! COPERNICI 

motrjm, qui circa medium eft, gencnil-ius accipere , a c fatis efTe, 
dum unufqui/quc motusfuiipfiiis medio incLimbac. YiiisL.££S g 




o 



' Solvuntur htc capte difficuCtates 4 PtoUntJco adverfm tnotum t(rr£ 
frpduiiit , (jr qui Jem tngeniofe magu quam foUde, excogttata nemfe novt 
hjfothefi de motu aert's quam PtoUmxtu ignoraft vtdetur. 

ytteres ttm glsbum ex ditabuf fArtibui confittut dixtrunt y ex terra 
f^ tquts ; Coper niCM hifcetartibus addii terttam , nempe aertm ltrr<t cir- 
Cttmfnfum^adeout terra fit globitfltus velut nudem. Hmctotiglobo ex 
tribui dtverfiiparttbiu eompofito Coper mem tribuit motum hoc locofim. 
flicem , cr cap- undecimo trtpltcem. In quantam vera altitudmem acr ijfe 
ten* ( ut fic loq uar) affxus fupra terram attofl/Uur, author non defrift: 
hoc tamen tnuuit , tn eogtgm 'uentos^ nubes, tonttrua, ^ c/ttera meteor a. 
Htc AernuncHpari debtiit aer terrenm ^cu]us affiatu vivunt qtntcumqut 
intern vivunt . Comet.t tn fublimtort najcit/ttiir aertf regione , atqut 
ideo huic tern motut mintme obrioxij funt , fid more jlellarurs nobU 
ortunttir c>~ occidunt. 

t [ Cum a:gro animal ] /'ro agro reponendur» t(} cc^uo. Sementu 
hjtc ep : Quemddmodum gojHi contiuettir m qtialibet fpecie , ut aruntdtn 
equo, uovc,porco . itaw quolibet motu contimittr circaUrfs.Fenti ferun- 
ttir in qiumlibet mundi pLi^am rr.otn citdtiffimo -^ ijdetn tarnen una. cum 
reiiqiiii ma^nt iflitts globt p^irtibiis agii/itur 7n gyrum ab occ^ifinn or- 
tum.ita lapts e turriffafitgto dimid'ta duplici motujertttr , reclo Cr circu. 
Uri . Sententix bii^m Veritas dependct ex hypothif; Coperniciana 

C A P V T IX. 

iAn terra plures pojfnf attnbm motus, Cr de centro mundt. 






Vm igitur iii l iii l |iiiil uIjjam'j i ., i l i niULL i .iuui i i ii l i i l iin bu ai 



. ..^^....^^^^^-^^^ ^.„,, „.„„. ^ Quod en im omnium 

i<na^.iM,9..^. revolutionum centrum non lie , motus errantium inccqualis appa- 
'"'"^./^"^^■rcns, 8c variabiles eorum a terra diflanna.- declarant, qua:inho- 
*^*^. moccntro terra: circulo non polTunt mtclljci . rUinbus creo exi- 

A "Corrected" Page from the De Revolutionibiis. 

A photographic facsimile (reduced) of a page from Mulier's edition 
(1617) of the Dc Rcvohitionihus as "corrected" according to the 
Monituni of the Congregations in 1620. The first writer underlined the 
passages to be deleted or altered with marginal notes indicating the 
changes ordered ; the second writer scratched out these passages, and 
wrote out in full the changes the other had given in abbreviated form. 
The Notcc are Mulier's own, and so were not affected by the order. The 
effect of the page is therefore somewhat contradictory ! 



61 



with the accession to the papacy in 1623 of Cardinal Barberini, 
as Urban VIII, a warm admirer and supporter of his, he thought 
rehef was in sight. He was further cheered by a conversation Car- 
dinal di Zollern reported having had with Pope Urban, in which 
his Holiness had reminded the Cardinal how he (the Pope) had 
defended Copernicus in the time of Paul V, and asserted that 
out of just respect owed to the memory of Copernicus, if he had 
been pope then, he would not have permitted his opinion to be 
declared heretical.^ Feeling that he now had friends in power, 
Galileo began his great work, Dialogo sopra i Due Sistemi 
Massimi del Mondo, a dialogue in four "days" in which three 
interlocutors discuss the arguments for and against the Coper- 
nican theory, though coming to no definite conclusion. Sagredo 
was an avowed Copernican and Galileo's spokesman, Salviati 
was openminded, and the peripatetic was Simplicio, appropri- 
ately named for the famous Sicilian sixth century commentator 
on Aristotle.^ 

In 1630 he brought the completed manuscript to Riccardi, 
Master of the Sacred Palace, for permission to print it in Rome. 
After much reading and re-reading of it both by Ricardi and 
his associate, Father Visconti, permission was at length granted 
on condition that he insert a preface and a conclusion practically 
dictated by Riccardi, emphasizing its hypothetical character.^ 
The Pope's own argument was to be used : "God is all-powerful ; 
all things are therefore possible to Him; ergo, the tides cannot 
be adduced as a necessary proof of the double motion of the 
earth without limiting God's omnipotence — which is absurd.""^ 
Galileo returned to Florence in June with the permission to print 
his book in Rome. Meanwhile the plague broke out. He 
decided to print it in Florence instead, and on writing to Riccardi 
for that permission, the latter asked for the book to review^ it 
again. The times were too troublesome to risk sending it, so a 
compromise was finally effected : Galileo was to send the preface 
and conclusion to Rome and Riccardi agreed to instruct the 
Inquisitor at Florence as to his requirements and to, authorize 
him to license the book.^ The parts were not returned from 



'Doc. in Favaro : 149. 'Galileo : Dialogo : To the Reader. 
'Doc. in Favaro: 70. *Fahie : 230. "Ibid: 240. 

63 



Rome till July, 1631, and the book did not appear till February 
of the following year, when it was published at Florence with 
all these licenses, both the Roman and the Florentine ones. 

The Dialogo was in Italian so that all could read it. It begins 
with an outline of the Aristotelian system, then points out the 
resemblances between the earth and the planets. The second 
"day" demonstrates the daily rotation of the earth on its axis. 
The next claims that the necessary stellar parallax is too minute 
to be observed and discusses the earth's annual rotation. The 
last seeks to prove this rotation by the ebb and flow of the tides. 
It is a brilliant book and received a great reception. 

The authorities of the Inquisition at once examined it and 
denounced Galileo (April 17, 1633) because in it he not merely 
taught and defended the "condemned doctrine but was gravely 
suspected of firm adherence to this opinion." Other charges 
made against him were that he had printed the Roman licenses 
without the permission of the Congregation, that he had printed 
the preface in different type so alienating it from the body of 
the book, and had put the required conclusion into the mouth of 
a fool (Simplicio), that in many places he had abandoned the 
hypothetical treatment and asserted the forbidden doctrine, and 
that he had dealt indecisively with the matter though the Con- 
gregation had specifically condemned the Copernican doctrine as 
contrary to the express words of the Scripture. - 

The Pope became convinced that Galileo had ridiculed him in 
the character of Simplicio to whom Galileo had naturally enough 
assigned the Pope's syllogistic argument. On' the 23rd of 
September, he ordered the Inquisitor of Florence to notify 
Galileo (in the presence of concealed notary and witnesses in 
case he were "recusant") to come to Rome and appear before 
the Sacred Congregation before the end of the next month f the 
publication and sale of the Dialogo meanwhile being stopped at 
great financial loss to the printer.^ Galileo promised to obey ; 
but he was nearly seventy years old and so much broken 
in health that a long difficult journey in the approaching winter 
seemed a great and unnecessary hardship, especially as he was 



'Doc. in Favaro: 88-89. 'Ibid: 66. 'Ibid: 17-18. 'Galileo: Opere, XV, 26. 
64 



loath to believe that the Church authorities were really hostile to 
him. Delays were granted him till the Pope in December finally 
ordered him to be in Rome within a month. ^ The Florentine 
Inquisitor replied that Galileo was in bed so sick that three doc- 
tors had certified that he could not travel except at serious risk 
to his life. This certificate declared that he suffered from an 
intermittent pulse, from enfeebled vital faculties, from frequent 
dizziness, from melancholia, weakness of the stomach, insomnia, 
shooting pains and serious hernia.^ The answer the Pope made 
to this was to order the Inquisitor to send at Galileo's expense a 
commissary and a doctor out to his villa to see if he were feign- 
ing illness ; if he were, he was to be sent bound and in chains to 
Rome at once ; if were really too ill to travel, then he was to be 
sent in chains as soon as he was convalescent and could travel 
safely.^ Galileo did not delay after that any longer than he 
could help, and set out for Rome in January in a litter supplied 
by the Tuscan Grand Duke.-^ The journey was prolonged by 
quarantine, but upon his arrival (February 13, 1633), he was 
welcomed into the palace of Niccolini, the warm-hearted ambas- 
sador of the Grand Duke. 

Four times was the old man summoned into the presence of 
the Holy Office, though never when the Pope was presiding. In 
his first examination held on the 12th of April, he told how he 
thought he had obeyed the decree of 1616 as his Dialogo did not 
defend the Copernican doctrine but rather confuted it, and that 
in his desire to dq the right, he had personally submitted the 
book while in manuscript to the censorship of the Master of the 
Sacred Palace, and had accepted all the changes he and the Flor- 
entine Inquisitor had required. He had not mentioned the affair 
of 1616 because he thought that order did not apply to this book 
in which he proved the lack of validity and of conclusiveness of 
the Copernican arguments.* With remarkable, in fact unique, 
consideration, the Holy Office then assigned Galileo to a suite of 
rooms within the prisons of the Holy Office, allowed him to have 
his servant w^ith him and to have his meals sent in by the ambas- 
sador. On the 30th after his examination, they even assigned 



'Doc. in Favaro: 74. 'Ibid: 75. ''Ibid: 76. *Ibid : 80-81. 

65 



as his prison, the Ambassador's palace, out of consideration for 
his age and ill-health. 

In his second appearance (April 30), Galileo declared he had 
been thinking matters over after re-reatiifig* his book (which- he 
had not read for three years), and freely confessed that there 
were several passages which would mislead a reader unaware of 
his real intentions, into believing the worse arguments were the 
better, and he blamed these slips upon his vain ambition and 
delight in his own skill in debate.^ He thereupon offered to 
write another "day" or two more for the Dialogo in which he 
would completely refute the two "strong" Copernican arguments 
based on the sun's spots and on the tides.- Ten days later, at his 
third appearance, he presented a written statement of his defence 
in which he claimed that the phrase vel quovis modo docere was 
wholly new to him, and that he had obeyed the order given him 
by Cardinal Bellarmin over the latter's own signature. However 
he would make what amends he could and begged the Cardinals 
to "consider his miserable bodily health and his incessant mental 
trouble for the past ten months, the discomforts of a long hard 
journey at the worst season, when 70 years old, together with 
the loss of the greater part of the year, and that therefore such 
suffering might be adequate punishment for his faults which 
they might condone to failing old age. Also he commended to 
them his honor and reputation against the calumnies of his ill- 
wishers who seek to detract from his o;ood riame."^ »rTo such a 
plight was the great man brought ! But the end was not yet. 

Nearly a month later (June 16), by order of the Pop^, Galileo 
was once again interrogated, this time under threat of "torture.* 
Once again he declared the opinion of Ptolemy true and indubit- 
able and said he did not hold and had not held this doctrine of 
Copernicus after he had been informed of the order to abandon 
it. "As for the rest." he added, "I am in your hands, do with 
me as you please." "I am here to obey."^ Then by the order 
of the Pope, ensued Galileo's complete abjuration on his knees 
in the presence of the full Congregation, coupled with his prom- 



^Doc. in Favaro: 83. 'Ibid: 84. 'Ibid: 85-87. "Ibid: 101. 
'Doc. in Favaro: 101. 

66 



ise to denounce other heretics (/. e., Copernicans).^ In addi- 
tion, because he was guilty of the heresy of having held and 
believed a doctrine declared and defined as contrary to the 
Scriptures, he was sentenced to "formal imprisonment" at the 
will of the Congregation, and to repeat the seven penitential 
Psalms every week for three years. - 

At Galileo's earnest request, his sentence was commuted 
almost at once, to imprisonment first in the archiepiscopal palace 
in Siena (from June 30-December 1), then in his own villa at 
Arcetri, outside Florence, though under strict orders not to re- 
ceive visitors but to live in solitude." In the spring his increas- 
ing illness occasioned another request for greater liberty in order 
to have the necessary visits from the doctor ; but on March 23, 
1634, this was denied him with a stern command from the Pope 
to refrain from further petitions lest the Sacred Congregation 
be compelled to recall him to their prisons in Rome.* 

The rule forbidding visitors seems not to have been rigidly 
enforced all the time, for Milton visited him, "a prisoner of the 
Inquisition" in 1638 f yet Father Castelli had to write to Rome 
for permission to visit him to learn his newly invented method 
of finding longitude at sea.® When in Florence on a very brief 
stay to see his doctor, Galileo had to have the especial consent 
of the Inquisitor in order to attend mass at Easter. He won 
approval from the Holy Congregation, however, by refusing 
to receive some gifts and letters brought him by some German 
merchants from the Low Countries.'' He was then totally blind, 
but he dragged out his existence until January 8, 1642 (the year 
of Newton's birth), when he died. As the Pope objected to a 
public funeral for a man sentenced by the Holy Office, he was 
buried without even an epitaph.^ The first inscription was made 
31 years later, and in 1737, his remains were removed to Santa 
Croce after the Congregation had first been asked if such action 
would be unobjectionable.^ 

Pope Urban had no intention of concealing Galileo's abjura- 



'Doc. in Favaro : 146. 'Ibid : 145. 'Ibid : 103, 129. "Ibid : 134. 
'Milton: Areopagitica: 35. 'Doc. in Favaro: 135. ^Ibid: 137. 
•Fahie: 402. 
'Doc. in Favaro: 138; and Fahie : 402. 

67 



tion and sentence. Instead, he ordered copies of both to be sent 
to all inquisitors and papal nuncios that they might notify all 
their clergy and especially all the professors of mathematics and 
philosophy within their districts, particularly those at Florence, 
Padua and Pisa/ This was done during the summer and fall of 
1633. From Wilna in Poland, Cologne, Paris, Brussels, and 
Madrid, as well as from all Italy, came the replies of the papal 
officials stating that the order had been obeyed.- He evidently 
intended to leave no ground for a remark like that of Fromun- 
dus about the earlier condemnation. 

Galileo Avas thus brought so low that the famous remark, 
"Eppur si muove," legend reports him to have made as he rose 
to his feet after his abjuration, is incredible in itself, even if it 
had appeared in history earlier than its first publication in 1761."' 
But his discoveries and his fight in defence of the system did 
much both to strengthen the doctrine itself and to win adherents 
to it. The appearance of the moon as seen through a telescope 
destroyed the Aristotelian notion of the perfection of heavenly 
bodies. Jupiter's satellites gave proof by analogy of the solar 
system, though on a smaller scale. The discovery of the phases 
of Venus refuted a hitherto strong objection to the Copernican 
system ; and the discovery of the spots on the sun led to his later 
discovery of the sun's axial rotation, another proof by analogy 
of the axial rotation of the earth. Yet he swore the Ptolemaic 
conception was the true one. 

The abjuration of Galileo makes a pitiful page in the history 
of thought and has been a fruitful source of controversy* for 
nearly three centuries. He was unquestionably a sincere and 
loyal Catholic, and accordingly submitted to the punishment de- 
creed by the authorities. But in his abjuration he plainly per- 
jured himself, however fully he may be pardoned for it because 
of the extenuating circumstances. Had he not submitted and 
been straitly imprisoned, if not burned, the world would indeed 



'Doc. in Favaro: 101. 103. 

=^Ibid: 104-132. 

'Fahie: 325, note. 

*For full statement, see Martin : 133-207. 



68 



have been the poorer by the loss of his greatest work, the Dialo- 
ghi delle Nuove Scienze, which he did not pubHsh until 1636J 

Even more hotly debated has been the action of the Congrega- 
tions in condemning the Copernican doctrine, and sentencing 
Galileo as a heretic for upholding it.- Though both Paul V and 
Urban VIII spurred on these actions, neither signed either the 
decree or the sentence, nor was the latter present at Galileo's 
examinations. Pope Urban would prefer not so openly to have 
changed his position from that of tolerance to his present one of 
active opposition caused partly by his piqued self-respect^ and 
partly by his belief that this heresy was more dangerous even 
than that of Luther and Calvin.* It is a much mooted question 
whether the infallibility of the Church was involved or not. 
Though the issue at stake was not one of faith, nor were the 
decrees issued by the Pope ex cathedra, but by a group of Cardi- 
nals, a fallible body, yet they had the full approbation of the 
Popes, and later were published in the Index preceded by a 
papal bull excommunicating those who did not obey the decrees 
contained therein.^ It seems to be a matter of the letter as 
opposed to the spirit of the law. De Morgan points out that con- 
temporary opinion as represented by Fromundus, an ardent 
opponent of Galileo, did not consider the Decree of the Index or 
of the Inquisition as a declaration of the Church,^ — a position 
which Galileo himself may have held, thus explaining his practi- 
cal disregard of the decree of 1616 after he was persuaded the 
authorities were more favorably disposed to him. But M. 
Martin, himself a Catholic, thinks^ that theoretically the Congre- 
gations could punish Galileo only for disobedience of the secret 
order, — but even so his book had been examined and passed by 
the official censors. 

When the Index was revised under Pope Benedict XIV in 
1757, largel}^ through the influence of the Jesuit astronomer 
Boscovich, so it is said,® the phrase prohibiting all books teach- 



'Gebler: 263. 'See Gebler : 244-247: White: I, 159-167; also Martin. 
'Martin: 136; and Salusbury: Math. Coll. "To the reader." 
*Galileo: Opere, XV. 25. 'Putnam: I. 310. •'DeMorgan : I, 98. 
'Martin: 140. 
"Caf/t. Ency.: "Boscovich." 

69 



ing the immobility of the sun, and the mobiHty of the earth was 
omitted from the decrees/ But in 1820, the Master of the 
Sacred Palace refused to permit the publication in Rome of a 
text-book on astronomy by Canon Settele, who thereupon 
appealed to the Congregations. They granted his request In 
August, and two years later, issued a decree approved by Pope 
Pius VII ordering the Master of the Sacred Palace in future 
"not to refuse license for publication of books dealing with the 
mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun according to 
the common opinion of modern astronomers" on that ground 
alone.^ The next edition of the Index Lihrorum Prohibitorum 
(1835) did not contain the works of Copernicus, Galileo, Fos- 
carini, a Stunica and Kepler which had appeared in every edi- 
tion up to that time since their condemnation in 1616, (Kepler's 
in 1619). 



^Doc. in Favaro: 159. 'Ibid: 30, 31. 



70 



CHAPTER III. 

The Opposition and Their Arguments. 

THE Protestant leaders had rejected the Copernican doctrine 
as contrary to the Scriptures. The Roman Congregations had 
now condemned Galileo for upholding this doctrine after they 
had prohibited it for the same reasons. These objections are 
perhaps best summarized in that open letter Foscarini wrote to 
the general of his order, the Carmelities, at Naples in January, 
1615,^ — the letter that was absolutely prohibited by the Index 
in March, 1616. He gave these arguments and answered them 
lest, as he said, "whilst otherwise the opinion is favored with 
much probability, it be found in reality to be extremely repug- 
nant (as at first sight it seems) not only to physical reasons and 
common principles received on all hands (which cannot do so 
much harm), but also (which would be of far worse conse- 
quence) to many authorities of Sacred Scripture. Upon which 
account many at first looking into it explode it as the most fond 
paradox and monstrous capriccio that ever was heard of." "Yet 
many modern authors," he says further on, "are induced to fol- 
low it, but with much hesitancy and fear, in regard that it 
seemeth in their opinion so to contradict the Holy Scriptures 
that it cannot possibly be reconciled to them." Consequently Fos- 
carini argued that the theory is either true or false; if false, it 
ought not to be divulged ; if true, the authority of the Sacred 
Scriptures will not oppose it; neither does one truth contradict 
another. So he turned to the Bible. 

He found that six groups of authorities seemed to oppose this 
doctrine. ( 1 ) Those stating that the earth stands fast, as Eccles. 
1:4. (2) Those stating, that the sun moves and revolves ; as 
Psalm XIX, Isaiah XXXVIII, and the miracle in Josh. X:12-14. 
(3) Those speaking of the heaven above and the earth beneath, 
as in Joel II. Also Christ came doivn from Heaven. (4) Those 



'In Salusbury: Math. Coll.; I, 471-503. 

71 



authorities who place Hell at the center of the world, a "common 
opinion of divines," because it ought to be in the lowest part of 
the world, that is, at the center of the sphere. Then by the Cop- 
ernican hypothesis, Hell must either be in the sun; or, if in the 
earth, if the earth should move about the sun, then Hell within 
the earth would be in Heaven, and nothing could be more ab- 
surd. (5) Those authorities opposing Heaven to earth and 
earth to Heaven, as in Gen. I, Mat. VI, etc. Since the two are 
always mutually opposed to each other, and Heaven undoubt- 
edly refers to the circumference, earth must necessarily be at 
the center. (6) Those authorities ("rather of fathers and divines 
than of the Sacred Scriptures") who declare that after the 
Day of Judgment, the sun shall stand immovable in the east 
and the moon in west. 

Foscarini then lays down in answer six maxims, the first of 
which is that things attributed to God must be expounded 
metaphorically according to our manner of understanding and 
of common speech. The other maxims are more metaphysical, 
as that everything in the universe, whether corruptible or in- 
corruptible, obeys a fixed law of its nature ; so, for example, 
Fortune is ahvays fickle. In concluding his defense, he claims 
among other things, that the Copernician is a more admirable 
hypothesis than the Ptolemaic, and that it is an easy way into 
astronomy and philosophy. Then he adds that there may be an 
analogy between the seven-branched candle-stick of the Old 
Testament and the seven planets around the sun, and possibly 
the arrangement of the seeds in the "Indian Figg," in the pome- 
granate and in grapes is all divine evidence of the solar sys- 
tem. With such an amusing reversion to mediaeval analogy his 
spirited letter ends. 

Some or all of these scriptural arguments appear in most of 
the attacks on the doctrine even before its condemnation by the 
Index in 1616 was widely known. Besides these objections, 
Aristotle's and Ptolemy's statements were endlessly repeated 
with implicit faith in their accuracy. Even Sir Francis Bacon 
(1567-1631) with all his modernity of thought, failed in this 
instance to recognize the value of the new idea and, despite his 



72 



interest in Galileo's discoveries, harked back to the time-hon- 
ored objections. At first mild in his opposition, he later be- 
came emphatically opposed to it. In the Advancement of 
Learning^ (1604), he speaks of it as a possible explanation of 
the celestial phenomena according to astronomy but as con- 
trary to natural philosophy. Some fifteen years later in the 
Novum Organon/ he asserts that the assumption of the earth's 
movement cannot be allowed; for, as he says in his Thema 
Coeli/ at that time he considered the opinion that the earth is 
stationary the truer one. Finally, in his De Augmentis Scien- 
tiarum* (1622-1623) he speaks of the old notions of the solid- 
ity of the heavens, etc., and adds, 'It is the absurdity of these 
opinions that has driven men to the diurnal motion; which T 
am convinced is most false." He gives his reasons in the 
Descriptio Globi Inteilectualis^ (ch. 5-6) : "In favor of the 
earth [as the center of the world] we have the evidence of our 
sight, and an inveterate opinion; and most of all this, that as 
dense bodies are contracted into a narrow compass, and rare 
bodies are widely diffused (and the area of every circle is 
contracted to the center) it seems to follow almost of necessity 
that the narrow space about the middle of the world be set 
down as the proper and peculiar place for dense bodies." The 
sun's claims to such a situation are satisfied through having two 
satellites of its own, Venus and Mercury. Copernicus's scheme 
is inconvenient; it overloads the earth with a triple motion; it 
creates a difficulty by separating the sun from the number of the 
planets with which it has much in common ; and the "introduction 
of so much immobility into nature . . . and making the moon 
revolve around the earth in an epicycle, and some other as- 
sumptions of his are the speculations of one who cares not 
what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calcula- 
tions answer." The total absence of all reference to the Scrip- 
tures is the unique and refreshing part of Bacon's thought. 

All the more common arguments against the diurnal rotation 
of the earth are well stated in an interesting little letter (1619) 



^Bk. II; sec. 8, §1. 'Bk. II, ch. 46. 'Phil. Works: 705. 
*Bk.. III. 'Phil. Works: 684-685. 



73 



by Thomas Feyens, or Fienus, a professor at the school of 
medicine in the University of Lou vain/ Thus CathoHc, Prot- 
estant, and unbeHever, Feyens, Melancthon, Bacon and Bodin, 
all had recourse to the same arguments to oppose this seemingly 
absurd doctrine. 

Froidmont, or Fromundus, the good friend and colleague 
of Feyens at Louvain, was also much interested in these mat- 
ters, so much so that some thought he had formerly accepted 
the Copernican doctrine and "only fled back into the camp of 
Aristotle and Ptolemy through terror at the decree of the S. 
Congregation of Cardinals."- His indignant denial of this 
imputation of turn-coat in 1634 is somewhat weakened by ref- 
erence to his Saturnalitice CoencB^ (1615) in which he sug- 
gests that, if the Copernican doctrine is admitted, then Hell 
may be in the sun at the center of the universe rather than in 
the earth, in order to be as far as possible from Paradise. He 
also refers in his De Conieta (1618) to the remark of Justus- 
Lipsius* that this paradox was buried with Copernicus,, saying 
"You are mistaken, O noble scholar : it lives, and it is full of 
vigor even now among many,""' thus apparently not seeing seri- 
ous objection to it. M. Monchamp summarizes Froidmont's point 
of view as against Aristotle and Ptolemy, half for Copernicus 
and wholly for Tycho Brahe. 

Froidmont's best known books are the two he wrote in 
answer to a defense of the Copernican position first by Phihp 
Lansberg, then by his son. The Ant-Aristarchus sive Orbis 
Terrce Immohilis, Liber unicus in quo decretum S. Congrega- 
tionis S. R. E. Cardinal, an. 1616, oAversus Pythagorico-Coper- 
nicanoits editum, defenditnr, appeared in 1631 before Galileo's 
condemnation. The Jesuit CavaHeri wrote to Galileo in May 
about it thus :^ "I have run it through, and verily it states the 
Copernican theory and the arguments in its favor with so much 
skill and efficacy that he seems to have understood it very well 
indeed. But he refutes them with so little force that he seems 



^Translated in Appendix C. For criticism, see Monchamp : 58-64. 
''Fromundus ; Vesta; Ad Lectorem. 'Monchamp : 41. 

*Justus-Lipsius : IV, 947. "Monchamp: 48. "Ibid: 94. 

74 



rather to be of an opinion contrary to that expressed in the title 
of his book. I have given it to M. Cesar. If you wish it, I 
will have it sent to you. The arguments he brings against 
Copernicus are those you have so masterfully stated and 
answered in your Dialogo." Nearly a year later, Galileo wrote 
to Gassendi and Diodati that he had received this book a month 
before and, although he had been unable to read much of it on 
account of his eye trouble, it seemed to him that of all the 
opponents of Copernicus whom he had seen, Fromundus was 
the most sensible and efficient.^ Again he wrote in January, 
1633, regretting that he had not seen it till six months after he 
had published his dialogues, for he would have both praised it 
and commented upon certain points. "As for Fromundus (who 
however shows himself to be a man of great talent) I wish he 
had not fallen into what seems to me a truly serious error, 
although a rather common one, in order to refute the Copernican 
opinion, of beginning by poking scorn and ridicule at those who 
consider it true, and then (what seems to me still less becoming) 
of basing his attack chiefly on the authority of the Scriptures, 
and finally of deducing from this that in this respect it is an 
opinion little short of heretical. To argue in this way is clearly 
not praiseworthy;" for as GaHleo goes on to show, if the Scrip- 
tures are the word of God, the heavens themselves are his handi- 
work. Why is the one less noble than the other ?^ 

Froidmont replied in 1633 to Lansberg's reply with his sec- 
ond attack, Vesta, sive Ant-Aristarchi V index, in which he laid 
even more emphasis upon the theological and scriptural objec- 
tions. Yet, in ignorance of GaHleo's condemnation, he con- 
siders the charge of heresy too strong. ''The partisans of this 
system do not after all disdain the authority of the Scriptures, 
although they appear to interpret it in a way rather in their 
favor." He also, and rightly, denies the existence at that time 
of any conclusive proof. ^ 

In spite of Froidmont's position, the University of Louvain 
was not cordial in its response to the papal nuncio's announce- 



'Galileo: Opere: XV, 25. 'Ibid: XIV, 340-341. 

'Monchamp: 107-108. 



75 



ment in September, 1633, of Galileo's abjuration and sentence, 
in marked contrast to the reply sent by the neighboring univer- 
sity of Douay. The latter body, in a letter signed by Mat- 
thseus Kellison (Sept. 7, 1633), declared the condemned 
theory ''should be discarded and hissed from the schools ; and 
that in the English College there in Douay, this paradox never 
had been approved and never would be, but had always been 
opposed and always would be."^ 

This^ opposition in the universities in Belgium continued 
throughout the century to be based not so much on scientific 
grounds as upon the Bible. This may be seen in the manu- 
script reports of lectures in physics and astronomy given at 
Liege in 1662, and at Lou vain between 1650-1660, though one 
of these does not mention the decree of 1616.^ The general 
congregation of the Society of Jesus in 1650 drew up a list 
of the propositions proscribed in their teaching, though, ac- 
cording to M. Monchamp (himself a Catholic) not thereby 
implying a denial of any probability they might have. The 35th 
proposition ran: "Terra movetur motu diurno ; planetae, tan- 
quam viventia, moventur ab intrinseco. Firmamentum stat."^ 
The Jesuit astronomer Tacquet in his textbook (Antwerp, 
1669) respected this decision, acknowledging that no scientific 
reason kept him from defending the theory, but solely his re- 
spect for the Christian faith.^ 

One of the pupils of the Jesuits revolted however. Martin 
van Welden, appointed professor of mathematics at Lou vain 
in 1683, debated a series of theses in January, 1691. The sec- 
ond read : "Indubitum est systhema Copernici de planetarum 
motu circa sole; inter quos merito terra censetur." His refusal 
to alter the wording except to change iiidubitum to certum 
brought on a stormy controversy within the faculty which even- 
tually reached the Council of Brabant and the papal nuncio at 
Brussels.^ The professor finally submitted, though he was not 
forbidden to teach the Copernician system, nor did the faculty 
affirm its falsity, merely that it was contrary to the Roman 



'Doc. in Favaro: 120-121, 132, 133. 'Monchamp: 125, 143. 

''Ibid: 148-149. "Ibid: 152-153. 'Ibid: 182-234. 

76 



decree. The professor re-opened the matter with a similar 
thesis in July, thereby arousing a second controversy that this 
time reached even the Privy Council. Once more he submitted, 
but solely with an apology for having caused a disagreement. 
His new theses in 1695 contained no explicit mention of the 
Copernician system; at least he had learned tact.^ 

The absorption of the German states in the Thirty Years 
War may account for the apparent absence there of Copernican 
discussion until after the Peace of Westphalia. A certain 
Georgius Ludovicus Agricola gave a syllogistic refutation of 
the doctrine as his disputation at the university of Wittenberg 
in 1665. While he acknowledged its ingenuity, he preferred to 
it "the noblest, truest, and divinely inspired system" of Tycho 
Brahe. The four requirements of an acceptable astronomical 
hypothesis according to this student are : ( 1 ) That it suit all the 
observations of all the ages; (2) That as far as possible, it be 
simple and clear; (3) That it be not contrary to the principles 
of physics and optics ; (4) That it be not contrary to the Holy 
Scriptures. As the Copernican theory does not meet all these 
tests, it is unsatisfactory. Incidentally, he considers it ''ridic- 
ulous to include the earth among the planets, because then we 
would be living in Heaven, forsooth, since we would be in a 
star." He decides finally "that the decree of March, 1616, 
condemning the Copernican opinion was not unjust, nor was 
Galileo unfairly treated."^ 

Two years later appeared a text-book at Niirnberg, by a 
Jesuit father, based on the twelfth century Sacrobosco treatise 
and without a single reference so far as I could find, to Coper- 
nicus!^ Another publication of the same year was a good deal 
more up to date. This was a kind of catechism in German by 
Johann-Henrich Voight* explaining for the common people 
various scientific and mathematical problems in a hundred ques- 
tions and answers. He himself, a Royal Swedish astronomer, 
obviously preferred the Tychonic system, but he left his reader 



^Monchamp: 321. 'Agricola: Disputatio. 

^Schotto: Organum Mathematiciim (1667). 

*Voight: Der Kunstgunstigen Einfalf Mathematischer Raritdten Erstes 
Hundert. (Hamburg, 1667). 

77 



free to choose between that and the Copernican one, both of 
which he carefully explained/ He made an interesting sum- 
mary in parallel columns of the arguments for and against the 
earth's motion which it seems worth while to repeat as an in- 
stance of what the common people were taught : 



Reasons for asserting the earth 
is motionless : 

1. David in Psalm 89: God has 
founded the earth and it shall 
not be moved. 

2. Joshua bade the sun stand 
still — which would not be 
notable were it not already at 
rest. 

3. The earth is the heaviest ele- 
ment, therefore it more prob- 
ably is at rest. 

4. Everything loose on the earth 
seeks its rest on the earth, 
why should not the whole 
earth itself be at rest? 

5. We always see half of the 
heavens and the fixed stars 
also in a great half circle, 
which we could not see if the 
earth moved, and especially 
if it declined to the north 
and south. . . . 

6. A stone or an arrow shot 
straight up falls straight 
down. But if the earth 
turned under it, from west to 
east, it must fall west of its 
starting point. 

7. In such revolutions houses 
and towers would fall in 
heaps. 

8. High and low tide could not 
exist ; the flying of birds and 
the swimming of fish would 
be hindered and all would be 
in a state of dizziness. 

And similarlv on both sides.^ 



Reasons for the belief that the 
earth is moved : 

1. The sun, the most excel- 
lent, the greatest and the 
midmost star, rightly stands 
still like a king while all 
the other stars with the 
earth swing round it. 

2. That you believe that the 
heavens revolve is due to 
ocular deception similar to 
that of a man on a ship 
leaving shore. 

3. That Joshua bade the sun 
stand still Moses wrote for 
the people in accordance 
with the popular miscon- 
ception. 

4. As the planets are each a 
special created thing in the 
heavens, so the earth is a 
similar creation and simi- 
larly revolves. 

5. The sun fitly rests at the 
center as the heart does in 
the middle of the human 
body. 

6. Since the earth has in itself 
its especial centrum, a stone 
or an arrow falls freely out 
of the air again to its own 
centrum as do all earthly 
things. 

7. The earth can move five 
miles in a second more 
readily than the sun can go 
forty miles in the same time- 



'Voight: op. cit. 
78 



28. 



Ibid: 30-31. 



Another writer preferring the Tychonic scheme was Longo- 
montanus, whose Astronomica Danica (Amsterdam, 1640) up- 
held this theory because it "obviates the absurdities of the 
Copernican hypothesis and most aptly corresponds to celestial 
appearances," and also because it is "midway between that and 
the Ptolemaic one."^ Even though he speaks of the "apparent 
motion of the sun," he attributed diurnal motion to the heavens, 
and believed the earth was at the center of the universe be- 
cause (1), from the account of the Creation, the heaven and the 
earth were first created, and what could be more likely than that 
the heavens should fill the space between the center (the earth) 
and the circumference? (2) and because of the incredibly 
enormous interval between the sphere of the fixed stars and the 
earth necessitated by Copernican doctrine. - 

The high-water mark of opposition after Galileo's condem- 
nation was reached in the Ahnagestmn Novum (Bologna, 1651) 
by Father Riccioli of the Society of Jesus. It was the author- 
itative answer of that order, the leaders of the Church in mat- 
ters of education, to the challenges of the literary world for 
a justification of the condemnation of the Copernican doc- 
trine and of Galileo for upholding it. Father Riccioli had been 
professor of philosophy and of mathematics for six years and 
of theology for ten when by order of his superiors, he was 
released from his lectureship to prepare a book containing all 
the material he could gather together on this great contro- 
versy of the age.^ He wrote it as he himself said, as "an 
apologia for the Sacred Congregation of the Cardinals who 
officially pronounced these condemnations, not so much because 
I thought such great height and eminence needed this at rny 
hands but especially in behalf of Catholics ; also out of the 
love of truth to which every non-Catholic, even, should be per- 
suaded ; and from a certain notable zeal and eagerness for the 
preservation of the Sacred Scriptures intact and unimpaired; 
and lastly because of that reverence and devotion which I owe 



'Longomontanus : Op. cit. : 162. 
'Longomontanus : Op. cit. : 158. 
^Riccioli: Aim. Nov.: Praefatio, I, xviii. 



79 



from my particular position toward the Holy, Catholic and 
Apostolic Church."^ 

This monumental work, the most important literary produc- 
tion of the Society in the 17th century,- is abundant witness to 
Riccioli's remarkable erudition and industry. Nearly one- 
fifth of the total bulk of the two huge volumes is devoted to a 
statement of the Copernican controversy. This is prefaced by 
a brief account of his own theory of the universe — the inveur 
tion of which is another proof of the ability of the man — for 
his scientific training prevented his acceptance of the Aristo- 
telian-Ptolemaic theory in the light of Galileo's discoveries; his 
position as a Jesuit and a faithful son of the Church precluded 
him from adopting the system condemned by its representatives ; 
and Tycho Brahe's scheme was not wholly to his liking. There- 
for he proposed an adaptation of the last-named, more in ac- 
cordance, as he thought, with the facts." Where Tycho had all 
the planets except the earth and the moon encircle the sun, and 
that in turn, together with the moon and the sphere of the fixed 
stars, sweep around the earth as the center of the universe, Ric- 
cioli made only Mars, Mercury and Venus encircle the sun, — 
Mars with an orbit the radius of which included the earth with- 
in its sweep, the other two planets with orbital radii shorter than 
that of the sun, and so excluding the earth. This he did, ( 1 ) be- 
cause both Jupiter and Saturn have their own kingdoms in the 
heavens, and Mars, Mercury and Venus are but satellites of 
the sun; (2) because there are greater varieties of eccentricity 
among these three than the other two; (3) because Saturn and 
Jupiter are the greatest planets and with the sphere of the fixed 
stars move more slowly; (4) Mars belongs with the sun because 
of their related movements ; and (5) because it is likely that one 
of the planets would have much in common both with Saturn 
and Jupiter and with Mercury and Venus also.^ 

Then he takes up the attack upon the Copernican doctrine. M. 
Delambre summarizes and comments upon 57 of his arguments 



'Riccioli: Aim. Nov.: II, 496. 

'Cath. Ency.; "Riccioli," and Walsh: Catholic Churchmen in Science 
200. (2nd series, 1909.) 

'Riccioli: Aim. Nov.: II, 288-289; see frontispiece. 

8o 



against it/ and Riccioli himself claims- to have stated "40 new 
arguments in behalf of Copernicus and 77 against him." But 
these sound somewhat familiar to the reader of anti-Copernican 
literature : as, for instance, 'Svhich is more natural, straight or 
circular movement?" Or, the Copernican argument that move- 
ment is easier if the object moved is smaller involves a matter of 
Faith since it implies a question of God's power ; for to God all 
is alike, there is no hard nor easy.^ Although diurnal movement 
is useful to the earth alone and so, according to the Copernicans, 
the earth should have the labor of it, Riccioli argues that every- 
thing was created for man ; let the stars revolve around him. The 
sun may be nobler than the earth, but man is nobler than the 
sun.* If the earth's movement were admitted, Ptolemy's de- 
fense would be broken down through the elimination of the 
epicycles of the superior planets : here, if ever, the Copernicans 
appear to score, as Riccioli himself admits,^' but he calls to his 
aid Tycho Brahe -and the Bible. ''To invoke such aids is to 
avow his defeat" is M. Delambre's comment at this point.*' 
There are many more arguments, of which the foregoing are 
but instances chosen more or less at random ; but no one of 
them is of especial weight or novelty. 

To strengthen his case, Riccioli listed thei supporters of the 
heliocentric doctrine throughout the ages, with those of the op- 
posite view. If a man's fame adds to the weight of his opinion, 
the modern reader will be inclined to think the Copernicans have 
the best of it, for omitting the ancients, most of those opposing 
it are obscure men/ 

In favor of the Copernican Against the hypothesis of the 
doctrine [references omit- earth's movement, 

ted].^ Aristotle 

Copernicus Ptolemy 

Rheticus Theon the Alexandrine 

Msestlin Regiomontanus 



'Delambre: Astr. Mod.: I, 674-680. 

^Riccioli: Apologia: 2. 

^'Riccioli: Aim. Nov.: II, 313, 315. 

^Riccioli: Aim. Nov.: II, 330-351. ''Ibid: II, 339-340. 

•'Delambre: Op. cit.: I, 677. 'Ibid: I, 673. "Riccioli : Aim. Nov.: IT. 290. 

8i 



Kepler 

Rothman 

Galileo 

Gilbert (diurnal motion) 

Foscarini 

Didacus Stunica (sic) 

Ismael Bullialdus 

Jacob Lansberg 

Peter Herigonus 

Gassendi, — "but submits his 

intellect captive to the 

Church decrees." 
Descartes "inclines to this 

belief." 
A. L. Politianus 
Bruno 



Alfraganus 

Macrobius 

Cleomedes 

Petrus Aliacensis 

George Buchanan 

Maurolycus 

Clavius 

Barocius 

Michael Neander 

Telesius 

Martinengus 

Justus-Lipsius 

Scheiner 

Tycho 

Tasso 

Scipio Claramontius 

Michael Incofer 

Fromundus 

Jacob Ascarisius 

Julius Caesar La Galla 

Tanner 

Bartholomaeus Amicus 

Antonio Rocce 

Marinus Mersennius 

Polacco 

Kircher 

Spinella 

Pineda 

Lorinis 

Mastrius 

Bellutris 

Poncius 

Delphinus 

Elephantutius 

Riccioli nevertheless viewed the Copernican system with 
much sympathy. After a full statement of it, he comments; 
"We have not yet exhausted the full profundities of the Coper- 
nican hypothesis, for the deeper one digs into it, the more in- 
genious and valuable subtilties may one unearth." Then he 
adds that "the greatness of Copernicus has never been suffi- 
ciently appreciated nor will it be, — that man who accomplished 
what no astronomer before him had scarcely been able even to 
suggest without an insane machinery of spheres, for by a 

82 



triple motion of the earth he abolished epicycles and eccentrics. 
What before so many Atlases could not support, this one Her- 
cules has dared to carry. Would that he had kept himself 
within the limits of his hypothesis !"^ 

His conclusions seem to show that only his position as a Jesuit 
restrained him from being a Copernican himself.-' "I. If the 
celestial phenomena alone are considered, they are equally well 
explained by the two hypotheses [Ptolemaic and Copernican]. 
n. The physical evidence as explained in the two systems with 
exception of percussion and the speed of bodies driven north 
or south, and east or west, is all for immobility. HI. One 
might waver indifferently between the two hypotheses aside 
from the witness of the Scriptures, which settles the question. 
IV. There are in addition plenty of other motives besides 
Scriptural ones for rejecting this system." ( !) But with the 
Scriptural evidence he adduces the decree of the Index under 
Paul V against the doctrine, and the sentence of Galileo, so 
that "the sole possible conclusion is that the earth stands by na- 
ture immobile in the center of the universe, and the sun moves 
around it with both a diurnal and an annual motion."^ 

Even this great book was as insufficient to stop the criticism of 
the action of the Congregations, as it was to stop the spread of 
the doctrine. So once again the father took up the cudgels in de- 
fense of the Church. The full title of his Apologia runs : "An 
Apologia in behalf of an argument from physical mathematics 
against the Copernican system, directed against that system by 
a new argument from the reflex motion of falling weights." 
(Venice, 1669). He states in this that his Almagestiim Novum 
had received the approbation of professors of mathematics at 
Bologna, of one at Pisa, and of another at Padua, and he quotes 
the conclusion from Nicetas Orthodoxus ("a diatribe by Julius 
Turrinus, doctor of mathematics, philosophy, medicine, law, and 
Greek letters") : "That the sun is revolved by diurnal and by an- 
nual motion, and that the earth is at rest I firmly hold, infallibly 
believe, and openly confess, not because of mathematical reasons. 



'Riccioli : Op. cit. : II, 304, 309. 'Delambre : Astr. Mod. : I, 680. 
'Riccioli: Op. cit.: II, 478 (condensed), 500. 

83 



but solely at the command of faith, by the authority of the Scrip- 
tures, and the nod of approval (nutu) of the Roman See, whose 
rules laid down at the dictation of the spirit of truth, may I, as 
befits everyone, uphold as law."^ 

Riccioli further on proceeds to answer his objecters, declaring 
that ''the Church did not decide ex cathedra that the Scripture 
concerning movement should be interpreted literally ; that the 
censure was laid by qualified theologians and approved by emin- 
ent cardinals, and was not merely provisional, nor for the time be- 
ing absolute, since the contrary could never be demonstrated ; and 
that while it was the primary intent of the Inquisitors to con- 
demn the opinion as heretical and directly contrary to the Scrip- 
tures. . . .they added that it was absurd and false also in phil- 
osophy, in order, not to avert any objections which could be 
on the side of philosophy or astronomy, but only lest any one 
should say that Scripture is opposed to philosophy."- These an- 
swers are indicative of the type of criticism with which the 
Church had to cope even at that time.-^ 



'Riccioli: Apologia: 4. 'Ibid: 103. 

^One bit of contemporary opinion on Riccioli and his work has come 
down to us. A canon at Liege, Rene-Frangois Sluse, wrote asking a 
friend (about 1670) to sound Wallis, the English mathematician, as to his 
opinion of the Almagestum Novum, and of this argument based on the 
acceleration of movement in falling bodies. Wallis himself replied that 
he thought the argument devoid of all value. The canon at once wrote. 
"I do not understand how a man as intelligent as Riccioli should think 
he could bring to a close a matter so difficult [the refutation] by a 
proof as futile as this." Monchamp : 165-166. 

For a full, annotated list of books published against the Copernican 
system between 1631-1688, see Martin: Galilee: 386-388. 



84 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernjcan System 

JUST as Tycho Brahe's system proved to be for some a good 
half-way station between the improbable Ptolemaic and the 
heretical Copernican system ;^ so the Cartesian philosophy helped 
others to reconcile their scientific knowledge with their reverence 
for the Scriptures, until Newton's work had more fully demon- 
strated the scientific truth. 

Its originator, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was in Holland 
when word of Galileo's condemnation reached him in 1633, as he 
was seeking in the bookshops of Amsterdam and Leyden for a 
copy of the Dialogo.^ Pie at once became alarmed lest he too be 
accused of trying to establish the movement of the earth, a doc- 
trine which he had understood was then publicly taught even in 
Rome, and which he had made the basis of his own philosophy. 
If this doctrine were condemned as false, then his philosophy 
must be also ; and, true to his training by the Jesuits, rather than 
go against the Church he would not publish his books. He set 
aside his Cosmos, and delayed the publication of the Methode 
for some years in consequence, even starting to translate it into 
Latin as a safeguard.* His conception of the universe, the Co- 
pernican one modified to meet the requirements of a literally 
interpreted Bible, was not printed until 1644, when it appeared 
in his Principes.^ 

According to this statement which he made only as a possible 
explanation of the phenomena and not as an absolute truth, while 
there was little to choose between the Tychonic and the Coper- 



^See Moxon : Advice, A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography (1670): 
269. 

^Haldane's Descartes (1905) is the most recent and authoritative ac- 
count based upon Descartes's works as published in the Adams-Tannery 
edition (Paris, 1896, foil.). This edition supersedes that of Cousin. 

'Haldane: 153. *Ibid : 158. 'Descartes: Principes, Ft. Ill, chap. 13. 

85 



nican conceptions, he inclined slightly toward the former. He 
conceived of the earth and the other planets as each borne along 
in its enveloping heaven like a ship by the tide, or like a man 
asleep on a ship that was sailing from Calais to Dover. The 
earth itself does not move, but it is transported so that its position 
is changed in relation to the other planets but not visibly so in 
relation to the fixed stars because of the vast intervening spaces. 
The laws of the universe affect even the most minute particle, 
and all alike are swept along in a series of vortices, or whirlpools, 
of greater or less size. Thus the whole planetary system sweeps 
around the sun in one great vortex, as the satellites sweep 
around their respective planets in lesser ones. In this way Des- 
cartes worked out a mechanical explanation of the universe of 
considerable importance because it was a rational one which any- 
one could understand. Its defects were many, to be sure, as for 
example, that it did not allow for the elliptical orbits of the plan- 
ets ;^ and one critic has claimed that this theory of a motionless 
earth borne along by an enveloping heaven was comparable to 
a worm in a Dutch cheese sent from Amsterdam to Batavia, — 
the worm has travelled about 6000 leagues but without changing 
its place!- But this theory fulfilled Descartes's aim: to show 
that the universe was governed by mechanical laws of which we 
can be absolutely certain and that Galileo's discoveries simply 
indicated this.^ 

This exposition of the Copernican doctrine strongly appealed 
to the literary world of the 17th and 18th centuries in western 
Europe, especially in the Netherlands, in the Paris salons and 
in the universities.* M. Monchamp cites a number of contempor- 
ary comments upon its spread, in one of which it is claimed that 
in 1691, the university of Louvain had for the preceding forty 
years been practically composed of Cartesians.^ For the time be- 
ing, this theory was a more or less satisfactory explanation of 
the universe according to known laws ; it answered to Galileo's 
observations ; it was in harmony with the Scriptures, and its vor- 
tices paved the way for the popular acceptance of Newton's law 
of universal gravitation. 

'Haldane : 291. =^Monchamp: 185, note. "Haldane : 292. 

*Ibid: 193, 279. ^Monchamp: 177-181. 

86 



Protestant England was of course little disturbed by the decree 
against the Copernican doctrine, a fact that makes it possible, 
perhaps, to see there more clearly the change in people's attitude 
from antagonism to acceptance, than in Catholic Europe where 
fear of the Church's power, and respect for its decisions inhib- 
ited honest public expression of thought and conviction. While 
in England also the literal interpretation of the Scriptures con- 
tinued to be with the common people a strong objection against 
the doctrine, the rationalist movement of the late seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries along with Newton's great work, helped win 
acceptance for it among the better educated classes. 

Bruno had failed to win over his English hearers, and in 1600 
when the De Magnete was published, William Gilbert, (1540- 
1603) was apparently the only supporter of the earth's move- 
ment then in England,^ and he advocated the diurnal motion 
only.2 Not many, however, were as outspoken as Bacon in de- 
nunciation of the system ; they were simply somewhat ironically 
indifferent. An exception to this was Dean Wren of Windsor 
(father of the famous architect). He could not speak strongly 
enough against it in his marginal notes on Browne's Pseudodoxia 
Epidemica. As Dr. Johnson wrote, ^ Sir Thomas Browne (1605- 
1682) himself in his zeal for the old errors, did not easily admit 
new positions, for he never mentioned the motion of the earth 
but with contempt and ridicule. This was not enough for the 



^Berry quotes (p. 92) a passage from Thomas Digges (d. 1595) with 
the date 1590; "But in this our age, one rare witte (seeing the continual! 
errors that from time to time more and more continually have been dis- 
covered, besides the infinite absurdities in their Theoricks, which they 
have been forced to admit that would not confess any mobility in 
the ball of the Earth) hath by long studye, paynfull practise, and rare 
invention delivered a new Theorick or Model of the World, shewing 
that the Earth resteth not in the Center of the whole world or globe of 
elements, which encircled or enclosed in the Moone's orbit, and together 
with the whole globe of mortality is carried round about the Sunne, 
which like a king in the middst of all, rayneth and giveth laws of motion 
to all the rest, sphaerically dispersing his glorious beames of light through 
all this sacred celestiall Temple." Browne also refers to Digges 
(I. 383). 

'Gilbert: De Magnete, Bk. VI, c. 3-5 (214-228). 

'Johnson ; Life, in Browne : I, xvii. 

87 



Dean, who wrote in the margin of Browne's book, at such a pas- 
sage,^ that there were * 'eighty-odd expresse places in the Bible 
affirming in plaine and overt terms the naturall and perpetuall 
motion of sun and moon" and that "a man should be affirighted 
to follow that audacious and pernicious suggestion which Satan 
used, and thereby undid us all in our first parents, that God 
hath a double meaning in his commands, in effect condemning 
God of amphibologye. And all this boldness and overweaning 
having no other ground but a seeming argument of some phe- 
nomena forsooth, which notwithstanding we know the learned 
Tycho, prince of astronomers, who lived fifty-two years since 
Copernicus, hath by admirable and matchlesse instruments and 
many yeares exact observations proved to bee noe better than a 
dreame." 

Richard Burton (1576-1639) in The Anatomy of Melancholy 
speaks of the doctrine as a "prodigious tenent, or paradox," 
lately revive by ''Copernicus, Brunus and some others," and 
calls Copernicus in consequence the successor of Atlas.- The 
vast extent of the heavens that this supposition requires, he 
considers "quite opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and 
all out as absurd as disproportional, (so some will) as prodi- 
gious, as that of the sun's swift motion of the heavens." If the 
earth is a planet, then other planets may be inhabited (as Chris- 
tian Huygens argued later on) ; and this involves a possible plu- 
rality of worlds. Burton laughs at those who, to avoid the 
Church attitude and yet explain the celestial phenomena, invent 
new hypotheses and new systems of the world, "correcting 
others, doing worse themselves, reforming some and marring 
all," as he says of Roeslin's endeavors. "In the meantime the 
world is tossed in a blanket amongst them ; they hoyse the earth 
up and down like a ball, make it stand and goe at their pleas- 
ure."^ He himself was indifferent. 

Others more sensitive to the implications of this system, 
might exclaim with George Herbert (1593-1633) :* 



^Browne : I, 35. 

^Burton : Anatomy of Melancholy, I, 1 ; I, 66. First edition. 1621 ; 

reprinted 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, 1651-2, 1660. 1676. 
'Ibid: I, 385. 389. "Herbert: II, 315. 

88 



"Although there were some fourtie heav'ns, or more, 

Sometimes I peere above them all; 
Sometimes I hardly reach a score, 

Sometimes to hell I fall. 

"O rack me not to such a vast extent, 

Those distances belong to thee. 
The world's too little for thy tent, 

A grave too big for me." 

Or they might waver, undecided, like Milton who had the arch- 
angel answer Adam's questions thus :^ 

"But whether thus these things, or whether not, 
Whether the Sun predominant in Heaven 
Rise on the Earth, or Earth rise on the Sun, 
Hee from the East his flaming robe begin. 
Or Shee from West her silent course advance 
With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps 
On her soft axle, while she paces ev'n 
And bears thee soft with the smooth Air along, 
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid. 
Leave them to God above, him serve and feare; 
Of other Creatures, as him pleases best, 
Wherever plac't, let him dispose; joy thou 
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise 
And the fair Eve: Heaven is for thee too high 
To know what passes there: be lowlie wise." (1667) 

Whewell thinks^ that at this time the diffusion of the Coper 
nican system was due more to the writings of Bishop Wilkins 
than to those of any one else, for their very extravagances drew 
stronger attention to it. The first, "The Discovery of a New 
World : or a Discourse tending to prove that there may be 
another habitable world in the moon," appeared in 1638 ; and 



^Milton : Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII, lines 159 et seq. 

The great Puritan divine, John Owen (1616—1683), accepts the mira- 
cle of the sun's standing still without a word of reference to the new 
astronomy. (Works: II, 160.) Farrar states that Owen declared New- 
ton's discoveries were against the evident testimonies of Scripture 
(Farrar: History of Interpretation: xviii.), but I have been unable to 
verify this statement. Owen died before the Principia was published in 
1687. 

-Whewell: I, 410. 

89 



a third edition was issued only two years later together with 
the second book; ''Discourse concerning a New Planet — that 
'tis probable our Earth is one of the planets." In this latter, 
the Bishop stated certain propositions as indubitable; among 
these were, that the scriptural passages intimating diurnal mo- 
tion of the sun or of the heavens are fairly capable of another 
interpretation; that there is no sufficient reason to prove the 
earth incapable of those motions which Copernicus ascribes to 
it; that it is more probable the earth does move than the heav- 
ens, and that this hypothesis is exactly agreeable to common ap- 
pearances.^ And these books appeared when political and con- 
stitutional matters, and not astronomical ones, were the burn- 
ing questions of the day in England. 

The spread of the doctrine was also helped by Thomas Salus- 
bury's translations of the books and passages condemned by the 
Index in 1616 and 1619. This collection, "intended for gentle- 
men," he published by popular subscription immediately after 
the Restoration,- a fact that indicates that not merely mathe- 
maticians (whom Whewell claims^ were by that time all de- 
cided Copernicans) but the general public were interested and 
awake.* 

The appearance of Newton's Principia in 1687 with his state- 
ment of the universal application of the law of gravitation, soon 
ended hesitancy for most people. Twelve years later, John 
Keill, (1671-1721), the Scotch mathematician and astronomer 
at Oxford, refuted Descartes's theory of vortices and opened 
the first course of lectures delivered at Oxford on the new New- 
tonian philosophy.'' Not only were his lectures thronged, but 



^Wilkins : Discourse Concerning a New Planet. 

""Salusbury: Math. Coll.: To the Reader. 

'Whewell: I, 411. 

*One London bookseller in 1670 advertised for sale "spheres accord- 
ing to the Ptolmean, Tychonean and Copernican systems with books for 
their use." (Moxon: 272.) In 1683 in London appeared the third 
edition of Gassendi's Institutio, the text-book of astronomy in the 
universities during this period of uncertainty. It too wavers between 
the Tychonic and the Copernican systems. 

'"Diet, of Nat. Biog. : "Keill." 

90 



his books advocating the Copernican system in full^ went 
through several editions in relatively few years. 

In the Colonies, Yale University which had hitherto been us- 
ing Gassendi's textbook, adopted the Newtonian ideas a few 
years later, partly through the gift to the university of some 
books by Sir Isaac himself, and partly through the enthusiasm 
of two young instructors there, Johnson and Brown, who in 
1714-1722 widened the mathematical course by including the new 
theories.^ The text they used was by Rohault, a Cartesian, 
edited by Samuel Clarke with critical notes exposing the falla- 
cies of Cartesianism. This "disguised Newtonian treatise" was 
used at Yale till 1744. The University of Pennsylvania used 
this same text book even later.^ 

In 1710 Pope (1688-1744) refers to "our Copernican sys- 
tem,"* and Addison (1671-1719) in the Spectator (July 2, 
1711) writes this very modern passage: 

"But among this set of writers, there are none who more 
gratify and enlarge the imagination, than the authors of the 
new philosophy, whether we consider their theories of the 
earth or heavens, the discoveries they have made by glasses, 
or any other of their contemplations on nature. . . . But 
when we survey the whole earth at once, and the several plan- 
ets that lie within its neighborhood, we are filled with a pleas- 
ing astonishment, to see so many worlds hanging one above 
another, and sliding around their axles in such an amazing 
pomp and solemnity. If, after this, we contemplate those wide 
fields of aether, that reach in height as far as from Saturn to 
the fixed stars, and run abroad almost to an infinitude, our 
imagination finds its capacity filled with so immense a prospect, 
as puts it upon the stretch to comprehend it. But if we yet rise 
higher, and consider the fixed stars as so many vast oceans of 
flame, that are each of them attended with a different set of 
planets, and still discover new firmaments and new lights, that 
are sunk farther in those unfathomable depths of aether, so 
as not to be seen by the strongest of our telescopes, we are lost 
in such a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and confounded with 
the immensity and magnificence of nature. 



^Keill : Introducfio ad Veram Astronomiam. 

'Cajori: 29-30. 

'Cajori: 2>7. "Pope : Works, VI, 110. 



91 



''Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, than to enlarge itself 
by degrees, in its contemplation of the various proportions 
wnich Its several objects bear to each other, when it compares 
the body of man to the bulk of the whole earth, the earth to 
the circle it describes round the sun, that circle to the sphere 
of the fixed stars, the sphere of the hxed stars to the circuit of 
the whole creation, the whole creation itself to the infinite space 
that is everywhere diffused around it; . . . But if, after all 
this, we take the least particle of these animal spirits, and con- 
sider its capacity wrought into a world, that shall contain within 
those narrow dimensions a heaven and earth, stars and planets, 
and every different species of living creatures, in the same 
analogy and proportion they bear to each other in our own uni- 
verse; such a speculation, by reason of its nicety, appears ridic- 
ulous to those who have not turned their thoughts that way, 
though, at the same time, it is founded on no less than the 
evidence of a demonstration."^ 

A little later. Cotton Mather declared (1721) that the "Co- 
pernican hypothesis is now generally preferred, ' and "that 
there is no objection against the motion of the earth but what 
has had a full solution."- Soon the semi-popular scientific 
books took up the Newtonian astronomy. One such was de- 
scribed as "useful for all sea-faring Men, as well as Gentle- 



'Addison: Spectator, No. 420, (IV, 372-373). An interesting contrast 
to this passage and a good illustration of how the traditional phraseol- 
ogy continued in poetrj'^ is found in Addison's famous hymn, written a 
year later: 

"Whilst all the stars that round her [earth] burn 
And all the planets in their turn. 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

"What tliough in solemn silence all 
Move round this dark terrestrial ball; 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amidst their radiant orbs be found ; 

"In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice; 
Forever singing, as they shine, 
'The hand that made us is divine'." 

"Mather : Christian Philosopher, 75, 76. 
92 



men, and Others."^ "Newtonianisme pour les Dames" was 
advertised in France in the forties.' By 1738 when Pope 
wrote the Universal Prayer: 

"Yet not to earth's contracted span 

Thy goodness let me bound 
Or think thee Lord alone of man, 

When thousand worlds are round," 

the Copernican-Newtonian astronomy had become a common- 
place to most well-educated people in England. To be sure, the 
great John Wesley (1770) considered the systems of the uni- 
verse merely *' ingenious conjectures," but then, he doubted 
whether "more than Probabilities we shall ever attain in regard 
to things at so great a distance from us."^ 

The old phraseology, however, did recur occasionally, es- 
pecially in poetry and in hymns. For instance, a hymnal (pref- 
ace dated 1806) contains such choice selections as : 

"Before the pondr'ous earthly globe 

In fluid air was stay'd, 
Before the ocean's mighty springs 

Their liquid stores display'd" — 

and: 

"Who led his blest unerring hand 

Or lent his needful aid 
When on its strong unshaken base 

The pondr'ous earth was laid?"* 

But too much importance should not be attributed to such pas- 
sages ; though poetry and astronomy need not conflict, as Keble 
illustrated :^ 

"Ye Stars that round the Sun of Righteousness 
In glorious order roll." ... 



^Leadbetter: Astronomy (1729). 

^In de Maupertius : Ouvrages Divers^ (at the back). 

^Wesley: Compendium of Natural Philosophy, I. 14, 139. 

*Dobell: Hymns, No. 5, No. 10. 

'Keble: Christian Year, 279. 



93 



By the middle of the 18th century in England, one could say 
with Home ''that the Newtonian System had been in posses- 
sion of the chair for some years ;"^ but it had not yet convinced 
the common people, for as Pike wrote in 1753, "Many Com- 
mon Christians to this day firmly believe that the earth really 
stands still and that the sun moves all round the earth once a 
day: neither can they be easily persuaded out of this opinion, 
because they look upon themselves bound to believe what the 
Scripture asserts. "- 

There was, however, just at this time a little group of 
thinkers who objected to Newton's scheme, "because of the 
endless uninterrupted flux of matter from the sun in light, an 
expense which should destroy that orb.'*^ These Hutchinson- 
ians conceived of light as pure ether in motion springing forth 
from the sun, growing more dense the further it goes till it be- 
comes air, and, striking the circumference of the universe 
(which is perhaps an immovable solid), is thrown back toward 
the sun and melted into light again. Its force as its tides of 
motion strike the earth and the other planets produces their 
constant gyrations.* Men like Duncan Forbes, Lord Presi- 
dent of the Court of Sessions, and George Home, President of 
Magdalen College, Oxford, as a weapon against rationalism, 
favored this notion that had been expounded by John Hutchin- 
son (1674-1737) in his Moses's Principia (1724).^ They were 
also strongly attracted by the scriptural symbolism with which 
the book abounds. Leslie Stephen summarizes their doctrines 
as (1) extreme dislike for rationalism, (2) a fanatical respect 
for the letter of the Bible, and (3) an attempt to enlist the ris- 
ing powers of scientific enquiry upon the side of orthodoxy.^ 
This "little eddy of thought"^ was not of much influence even 
at that time, but it has a certain interest as indicating the posi- 
tions men have taken when on the defensive against new ideas. 



^H'orne : Fair, Candid, Impartial Statement . . , 4, 

^Pike: Philosophia Sacra, 43. 

'Forbes: Letter, (1755). *See Wesley: I, 136-7. 

^Dict. of Nat. Biog. "Hutchinson." 

"Stephen: Hist, of Eng. Thought: I, 390. 'Ibid: 391. 

94 



CHAPTER V 

The Church and the New Astronomy : Conclusion 

ASTRONOMICAL thought on the Contment was more 
hampered, in the Cathohc countries especiaUy, by the re- 
strictive opinions of the Church. Yet in 1757, when the de- 
cree prohibiting all books dealing with the Copernican doctrine 
was removed from the Index, that system had already long- 
been adopted by the more celebrated academies of Europe, for 
so Mme. de Premontval claimed in 1750; and it was then 
reaching out to non-scientific readers, through simple accounts 
for "ladies and others not well versed in these somewhat tech- 
nical matters."^ The great landmark in the development of the 
doctrine was the publication of Newton's Principia in 1687, 
though its effect in Europe was of course slower in being felt 
than it was in England. Newton's work and that of the as- 
tronomers immediately following him was influential except 
where the Church's prohibitions still held sway. 

During this period, the books published in free Holland were 
more outspoken in their radical acceptance or in their uncer- 
tainty of the truth than were those published in the Catholic 
countries. Christian Huygens's treatises on the plurality of 
worlds not only fully accepted the Copernican doctrine, but like 
those of Bishop Wilkins in England, deduced therefrom the 
probability that the other planets are inhabited even as the 
earth is. A writer'- on the sphere in 1697 stated the different 
theories of the universe so that his readers might choose the 
one that to them appeared the most probable. He himself pre- 
ferred the Cartesian explanation as the simplest and most con- 
venient of all, "though it should be held merely as an hypoth- 
esis and not as in absolute agreement with the truth." Pierre 
Bayle"^ also explained the different systems, but appears himself 



Me Premontval: Le Mechaniste Philosophe, 54, 72. (The Hague, 1750). 

Me Brisbar : Calendrier Historiquc, (Leyden), 228-233. 

*Bayle: Systeme Abrege de Philosophie (The Hague, 1731), IV, 394-412. 

95 



to waver between the Copernican and the Tychonic concep- 
tions. He used, however, the old word "perigee" (nearness 
to the earth) rather than the Newtonian "perihehon" (near- 
ness to the sun). His objections to the Copernican doctrine 
have a famihar ring: It is contrary to the evidence of the 
senses ; a stone would not fall back to its starting-place, nor 
could a bird return to her nest; the earth would not be equi- 
distant from the horizon and the two poles; and lastly it is con- 
trary to the Scriptures. Only a few years later,, however, De 
Maupertius wrote that no one at that day (1744) doubted any 
longer the motion of the earth around its axis, and he believed 
with Newton that the laws of gravity applied to the universe as 
well as to the earth. Then he proceeded to explain the Coper- 
nican system which he favored on the ground of its greater 
probability.^ 

Even in 1750, Mme. de Premontval thought it wiser to pub- 
lish in Holland her little life of her father, Le Mechaniste Phi- 
losophe. This Jean Piegeon, she claimed, was the first man in 
France to make spheres according to the Copernican system. 
An orphan, he was educated by a priest ; then took up carpen- 
try and mechanics. When he tried to make a celestial sphere 
according to the Ptolemaic system, he became convinced of its 
falsity because of its complexities. Therefore he plunged into 
a study of the new system which he adopted. His first Coper- 
nican sphere was exhibited before Louis XIV at Versailles !n 
1706 and was bought by the king and presented to the Acad- 
emic des Sciences.^ The second was taken to Canada by one of 
the royal officials. Public interest in his work was keen; even 
Peter the Great, who was then in Paris, visited his workroom.^ 
M. Piegeon also wrote a book on the Copernican system.^ 

It seems, however, as though M. Piegeon were slightly in ad- 
vance of his age, or more daring, perhaps, than his contempo- 
raries, for there was almost no outspoken support of the Co- 
pernican system at this time in France. Even Cassini of the 
French Academic des Sciences did not expHcitly support it, 



Me Maupertius : Elements de Geographic, xv, 9-14. 

Me Premontval: 123. nbid: 132. 'Ibid: 157. 

96 



though he spoke favorably of it and remarked that recent ob- 
servations had demonstrated the revolutions of each planet 
around the sun in accordance with that supposition.^ But the 
great orator, Bossuet, (1627-1703), clung to the Ptolemaic con- 
ception as alone orthodox, and scriptural.- AJ^be Fenelon 
(1651-1715) writing on the existence of God, asked: "Who is 
it who has hung up this motionless ball of the earth ; who has 
placed the foundations for it," and "who has taught the sun to 
turn ceasely and regularly in spaces where nothing troubles 
it?"" And a writer on the history of the heavens as treated by 
poets, philosophers and Moses (1739), tells Gassendi, Descartes 
and many other great thinkers that their ideas of the heavens 
are proved vain and false by daily experience as Vv^ell as by the 
account of Creation ; for the most enlightened experience is 
wholly and completely in accord with the account of Moses. 
This book was written, the author said, for young people stu- 
dents of philosophy and the humanities, also for teachers.* 

The Jesuit order, still a power in Europe in the early 18th 
century, was bound to the support of the traditional view, which 
led them into some curious positions in connection with 
the discoveries made in astronomy during this period. Thus 
the famous Jesuit astronomer Boscovich (1711-1787) published 
in Rome in 1746 a study of the ellipticity of the orbits of plan- 
ets which necessitated the use of the Copernican position ; he 
stated he had assumed it as true merely to facilitate his labors. 
In the second edition (1785) published some years after the re- 
moval from the Index of the decree against books teaching the 
Copernican doctrine (at his instigation, it is claimed),^ he 
added a note to this passage asking the reader to remember the 
time and the place of its former publication. ''^ Just at the 
end of the preceding century, one of the seminary fathers at 
Liege maintained that were the earth to move, being made up 



^Cassini: De VOrigine et du Progris . . 35. 

^Shields : 59. I have failed to find this reference in Bossuet's works. 

'Fenelon: Oeuvres, I, 3 and 7. 

*Pltiche : Histoire du del : viil, ix, xiii. 

'Cath. Ency.: "Boscovitch." 'Opera: III (1785). 

97 



of so many and divers combustible materials, it would soon 
burst into flames and be reduced to ashes !^ 

During the 18th century at Louvain the Copernican doctrine 
was warmly supported, but as a theory. A MS. of a course 
given there in 1748 has come down to us, in which the pro- 
fessor, while affirming its hypothetical character, described it as 
a simple, clear and satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, 
then answered all the objections made against it by theologians, 
physicists, and astronomers.^ A few years earlier, (1728) a 
Jesuit at Liege, though well acquainted with Newton's work, 
declared : "For my part I do not doubt the least in the world 
that the earth is eternally fixed, for God has founded the ter- 
restrial globe, and it will not be shaken."^ x\nother priest 
stated in the first chapter of his astronomy that the sun and the 
planets daily revolve around the earth ; then later on, he ex- 
plained the Copernican and the Tychonic schemes and the Car- 
tesian theory of motion with evident sympathy.^ Two others, 
one a Jesuit in 1682 at Naples,^ the other in 1741 at Verona, 
frankly preferred the Tychonic system, and the latter called the 
system found by "Tommaso Copernico" a mere fancy.^ Still 
another priest, evidently well acquainted with Bradley's work, 
as late as in 1774 declared that there was nothing decisive on 
either side of the great controversy between the systems. "^ At 
this time, however, a father was teaching the Copernican sys- 
tem at Liege without differentiating between thesis and hypoth- 
esis.^ And a Jesuit, w^hile he denied (1772) universal gravita- 
tion, the earth's movement, and the plurality of inhabited 
worlds, declared that the Roman Congregation had done wrong 
in charging these as heretical suggestions. In fact, M. Mon- 
champ, himself a Catholic priest at Louvain, declared that the 
Newtonian proofs were considered by many in the 18th century 
virtually to abrogate the condemnation of 1616 and 1633 ; hence 
the professors of the seminary at Liege had adopted the Coper- 
nican system.® 

'Cited in Monchamp : 335 note. 'Ibid: 326. 'Ibid: 330. 

*Fontana: Institutio, II, 32-35. 'Ferramosca : Positiones . . :19. 

*Piccoli: La Scienza, 4, 7. ^Spagnio, De Motu, 81. *Monchamp : 331. 
"Monchamp : 345. 

g8 



The famous French astronomer Lalande, in Rome in 1757 
when the Inquisition first modified its position, tried to per- 
suade the authorities to remove Galileo's book also from the 
Index; but his efforts were unavailing, because of the sentence 
declared against its author/ In 1820 Canon Settele was not 
allowed by the Master of the Sacred Palace to publish his text- 
book because it dealt with the forbidden subject. His appeal 
to the Congregation itself resulted, as we have seen, in the 
decree of 1822 removing this as a cause for prohibition. Yet 
as late as in 1829, when a statue to Copernicus was being un- 
veiled at Warsaw, and a great convocation had met in the 
church for the celebration of the mass as part of the ceremony, 
at the last moment the clergy refused in a body to attend a 
service in honor of a man whose book was on the Index.- 

Thus the Roman Catholic Church by reason of its organiza- 
tion and of its doctrine requiring obedience to its authority was 
more conspicuous for its opposition as a body to the Copernican 
doctrine, even though as individuals many of its members fav- 
ored the new system. But the Protestant leaders were quite as 
emphatic in their denunciations, though less influential because 
of the Protestant idea of the right to individual belief and inter- 
pretation. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Turrettin,^ Owen, and 
Wesley are some of the notable opponents to it. And when the 
scientific objections had practically disappeared, those who in- 
terpreted the Scriptures Hterally were still troubled and hesi- 
tant down to the present day. Not many years ago, people 
flocked to hear a negro preacher of the South, Brother Jas- 
per, uphold with all his ability that the sun stood still at 
Joshua's command, and that today ''the sun do move!" Far 
more surprising is this statement in the new Catholic Encyclo- 
pedia under "Faith," written by an English Dominican : 

"If, now, the will moves the intellect to consider some debat- 
able point — e. g., the Copernican and Ptolemaic theories of the 
relationship between the sun and the earth — it is clear that the 
intellect can only assent to one of these views in proportion that 



^Bailly: II, 132, note. 

'Flammarion: 196-198. 'Shields: 60. 



99 



it is convinced that the particular view is true. But neither 
view has, as far as we can know, more than probable truth, 
hence of itself the intellect can only give in its partial adherence 
to one of these views, it must always be precluded from abso- 
lute assent by the possibility that the other may be right. The 
fact that men hold more tenaciously to one of these than the 
arguments warrant can only be due to some extrinsic consider- 
ation, e. g., that it is absurd not to hold to what a vast majority 
of men hold." 

In astronomical thought as in many another field, science and 
reason have had a hard struggle in men's minds to defeat tra- 
dition and the weight of verbal inspiration. Within the Roman 
Catholic Church opposition to this doctrine was officially weak- 
ened in 1757, but not completely ended till the publication of the 
Index in 1835 — the first edition since the decrees of 1616 and 
1619 which did not contain the works of Copernicus, Galileo, 
Foscarini, a Stunica and Kepler. Since then, Roman Catholic 
writers have been particularly active in defending and explain- 
ing the positions of the Church in these matters. They have 
not agreed among themselves as to whether the infallibility of 
the Church had been involved in these condemnations, nor as 
to the reasons for them. As one writer has summarized these 
diverse positions,^ they first claimed that Galileo was condemned 
not for upholding a heresy, but for attempting to reconcile these 
ideas with the Scriptures, — though in fact he was sentenced spe- 
cifically for heresy. In their next defense they declared Gali- 
leo was not .condemned for heresy, but for contumacy and want 
of respect to the Pope.^ This statement proving untenable, 
others held that it was the result of a persecution developing 
out of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors and those pro- 
fessors who favored experiment, — a still worse argument for 
the Church itself. Then some claimed that the condemnation 
was merely provisional, — a position hardly warranted by the 
wording hi the decrees themselves and flatly contradicted by 
Father Riccioli, the spokesman of the Jesuit authorities.^ More 
recently, Roman Catholics have held that Galileo was no more 



'White: I, 159-167. 'See di Bruno: Catholic Belief, 286a. 

"Riccioli : Apologia, 103. 



lOO 



a victim of the Roman Church than of the Protestant — which 
fails to remove the blame of either. The most recent position 
is that the condemnation of the doctrine by the popes was not 
as popes but as men simply, and the Church was not commit- 
ted to their decision since the popes had not signed the decrees. 
But two noted English Catholics, Roberts and Mivart, publicly 
stated in 1870 that the infallibility of the papacy was fully com- 
mitted in these condemnations by what they termed incontro- 
vertible evidence.^ 

One present-day Catholic calls the action of the Congrega- 
tions "a theoretical mistake ;"^ another admits it was a deplora- 
ble mistake, but practically their only serious one;^ and a third 
considers it "providential" since it proved conclusively ''that 
whenever there is apparent contradiction between the truths of 
science and the truths of faith, either the scientist is declaring 
as proved what in reality is a mere hypothesis, or the theologian 
is putting forth his own personal views instead of the teaching 
of the Gospel."* Few would accept today, however, the opinion 
of the anonymous writer in the Dublin Review in the forties 
that "to the Pontiffs and dignitaries of Rome we are mainly in- 
debted for the Copernican system" and that the phrases "heret- 
ical" and "heresy" in the sentence of 1633 were but the stylus 
curice, for it was termed heresy only in the technical sense. ^ 

The majority of Protestants, with the possible exception of 
the Lutherans, were satisfied with the probable truth of the Co- 
pernican doctrine before the end of the 18th century. Down 
to the present day, however, there have been isolated protests 
raised against it, usually on technical grounds supported by ref- 
erence to the Scriptures. DeMorgan refers to one such, "An 
Inquiry into the Copernican System . . . wherein it is proved 
in the clearest manner, that the earth has only her diurnal mo- 
tion . . . with an attempt to point out the only true way 
whereby mankind can receive any real benefit from the study 



^White : I, 165. See the answer by Wegg-Prosser : Galileo and his 
Judges. 
'Donat: 183. 'Walsh: Popes and Science, 17. *Conway: 48. 
^Anon. : Galileo — the Roman Congregation, 39, 60. 



lOI 



of the heavenly bodies, by John Cunningham, London, 1789," 
DeMorgan adds that "the true way appears to be the treatment 
of heaven and earth as emblematical of the Trinity."^ Another, 
by "Anglo-American," is entitled "Copernicus Refuted ; or the 
True Solar System" (Baltimore, 1846). It begins thus: 

"One of these must go, the other stand still. 
It matters not which, so choose at your will ; 
But when you find one already stuck fast, 
You've only got Hobson's choice left at last." 

This writer admits the earth's axial rotation, but declares the 
earth is fixed as a pivot in the center of the universe, because 
the poles of the earth are fixed and immovable, and that the sun 
as in the Tychonic scheme encircles the earth and is itself en- 
circled by five planets.- His account of the origin of the Coper- 
nican system is noteworthy: it was originated by Pythagoras 
and his deciples but lay neglected because it was held to be 
untenable in their time ; it was "revived when learning was at 
its lowest ebb by a monk in his cloister, Copernicus, who in ran- 
sacking the contents of the monastery happened to lay his hands 
on the MS. and then published it to the world with all its blun- 
ders and imperfections !"" One might remark that the Anglo- 
American's own learning was at very low ebb. 

The Tychonic scheme was revived also some years later by a 
Dane, Zytphen (1856).^ Three years after, an assembly of 
Lutheran clergy met together at Berlin to protest against ""sci- 
ence falsely so-called,"^ but were brought into ridicule by Pas- 
tor Knap's denunciations of the Copernican theory as abso- 
lutely incompatible with behef in the Bible. A Carl Schoepfifer 
had taken up the defense of the Tychonic scheme in Berlin be- 
fore this (1854) and by 1868 his lecture was in its seventh edi- 
tion. In it he sought to prove that the earth revolves neither 
upon its own axis nor yet about the sun. He had seen Fou- 
cault's pendulum demonstration of the earth's movement, but he 
held that something else, as yet unexplained, caused the devia- 
tion of the pendulum, and that the velocity of the heavens 



'De Morgan: I, 172. '"Anglo- American" : 5-6. 'Ibid: 11. 

*De Morgan: II, 335. 'White: I, ISO. 



102 



would be no more amazing than the ahnost incredible velocity 
of light or of electricity/ His lecture, curiously enough, fell 
into the hands of the late General John Watts de Peyster of 
New York, who had it translated and published in 1900 together 
with a supplement by Frank Allaben.- Both these gentlemen ac- 
cepted its scientific views and deductions, but the General refused 
to go as far as his colleague in the latter's enthusiastic acceptance 
of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures as a result of these 
statements.^ A few months later, they published a supplemen- 
tary pamphlet claiming to prove the possibility of the sun's 
velocity by the analogy of the velocity of certain comets.* A 
Professor J. R. Lange of California (a German), attracted by 
these documents, sent them his own lucubrations on this sub- 
ject. He considered Newton's doctrine of universal attraction 
''nonsense," and had "absolute proof" in the fixity of the Pole 
Star that the earth does not move.^ In a letter to General de 
Peyster, he wrote: ''Let us hope and pray that the days of the 
pernicious Copernican system may be numbered,"*^ — but he did 
not specify why he considered it pernicious. The General was 
nearly eighty years old when he became interested in these mat- 
ters, and he did not live long thereafter to defend his position. 
His biographers make no mention of it. The other men seem 
almost obsessed, especially Lange ; — like the Italian painter, Sin- 
dico, who bombarded the director of the Paris Observatory in 
1878 with many letters protesting against the Copernican sys- 
tem. '^' 

German writers, whether Lutherans or not, appear to have 
opposed the system more often in the last century than have 
the writers of other nationalities. Besides those already men- 
tioned, one proposed an ingenious scheme in which the sun 
moves through space followed by the planets as a comet is by 



^Schoepffer: The Earth Stands Fast, title-page, 6-7. 
■'Ibid: Supplement by Allaben, 21, 74. 
'Ibid : Note by J. W. de P., 74. 
*De Peyster and Allaben: Algol, preface. 

'Lange: The Copernican System: The Greatest Absurdity in the His- 
tory of Human Thought. 
'De Peyster and Allaben: Algol, 74. 
^Sindico : Refutation du Systeme de Copernic. . . 

103 



its tail, the planets revolving in a plane perpendicular to that of 
the sun's path. A diagram of it would be cone-shaped. He 
included in this pamphlet, besides a list of his own books, (all 
published in Leipsic), a list of twenty-six titles from 1758 to 
1883, books and pamphlets evidently opposed in whole or in 
part to the modem astronomy, and seventeen of these v/ere in 
German or printed in Germany.^ In this country at St. Louis 
was issued an Astronomische Unterrediing (1873) by 
J. C. W. L. ; according to the late President White, a bitter 
attack on modern astronomy and a decision by the Scriptures 
that the earth is the principal body of the universe, that it 
stands fixed, and that the sun and the moon only serve to light 
it.2 

Such statements are futile in themselves nowadays, and are 
valuable only to illustrate the advance of modern thought of 
which these are the little eddies. While modern astronomers 
know far more than Copernicus even dreamed of, much of his 
work still holds true today. The world was slow to accept his 
system because of tradition, authority, so-called common sense, 
and its supposed incompatibility with scriptural passages. Cath- 
olic and Protestant alike opposed it on these grounds ; but be- 
cause of its organization and authority, the Roman Catholic 
Church had far greater power and could more successfully 
hinder and delay its acceptance than could the Protestants. 
Consequently the system won favor slowly at first through the 
indifference of the authorities, then later in spite of their active 
antagonism. Scholars believed it long before the universities 
were permitted to teach it ; and the rationalist movement of the 
18th century, the revolt against a superstitious religion, helped 
to overturn the age-old conception of the heavens and to bring 
Newtonian-Copernicanism into general acceptance. 

The elements of this traditional conception are summarized 
in the fifth book of Bodin's Universcc Nviturcc Theatrum, a 
scholar's account of astronomy at the close of the sixteenth cen- 
tury.^ Man in his terrestrial habitation occupies the center of 



^Tischner: Le Systeme Solaire se Mouvant. (1894) 

==White: I, 151. 

'See translated sections in Appendix C. 

104 



a universe created solely to serve him, God presides over all 
from the Empyrean above, sending forth his messengers the an- 
gels to guide and control the heavenly bodies. Such had been 
the thought of Christians for more than a thousand years. Then 
came the influence of a new science. Tycho Brahe "broke the 
crystal spheres of Aristotle"^ by his study of the comet of 1572; 
Galileo's telescopes revealed many stars hitherto unknown, and 
partly solved the mysteries of the Milky Way ; Kepler's laws ex- 
plained the courses of the planets, and Newton's discovery of the 
universal application of the forces of attraction relieved the an- 
gels of their duties among the heavens. Thinkers like Bruno 
proposed the possibility of other systems and universes besides 
the solar one in which the earth belongs. And thus not only did 
man shrink in importance in his own eyes ; but his conception of 
the heavens changed from that of a finite place inexpHcably 
controlled by the mystical beings of a supernatural world, to one 
of vast and infinite spaces traversed by bodies whose density and 
mass a man could calculate, whose movements he could foretell, 
and whose very substance he could analyze by the science of to- 
day. This dissolution of superstition, especially in regard to 
comets was notably rapid and complete after the comet 
of 1680.- Thus the rationalist movement with the new 
science opened men's minds to a universe composed of familiar 
substances and controlled by known or knowable laws with no 
tinge remaining of the supernatural. Today a man's theological 
beliefs are not shaken by the discovery of a new satellite or even 
a new planet, and the appearance of a new comet merely pro- 
vides the newspaper editor with the subject of a passing jest. 

Yet it was fully one hundred and fifty years after the publica- 
tion of the De Revolutionihus before its system met with the 
general approval of scholars as well as of mathematicians ; then 
nearly a generation more had to elapsq before it was openly 
taught even at Oxford where the Roman Catholic and Lutheran 
Churches had no control. During the latter part of this period, 
readers were often left free to decide for themselves as to the 
relative merits of the Tychonic and Copernican or Copernican- 



'Robinson: 107. 'Ibid: 119. 

105 



Cartesian schemes. But it took fully fifty years and more, be- 
sides, before these ideas had won general acceptance by the com- 
mon people, so wedded were they to the traditional view 
through custom and a superstitious reverence for the Bible. 
Briefly then, the De Revolutionibus appeared in 1543; and quiet- 
ly won some supporters, notably Bruno, Kepler and Galileo; the 
Congregations of the Index specifically opposed it in 1616 and 
1633; however it continued to spread among scholars and oth- 
ers with the aid of Cartesianism for another fifty years till the 
appearance of Newton's Principia in 1687. Then its acceptance 
rapidly became general even in Catholic Europe, till it was al- 
most a commonplace in England by 1743, two hundred years 
after its first formal promulgation, and had become strong enough 
in Europe to cause the Congregations in 1757 to modify their 
stand. Thereafter opposition became a curiosity rather than a 
significant fact. Only the Roman Church officially delayed its 
recognition of the new astronomy till the absurdity of its obso- 
lete position was brought home to it by Canon Settele's appeal in 
1820. Fifteen years later the last trace of official condemnation 
was removed, a little over two hundred years after the decrees 
had first been issued, and just before Bessel's discovery of 
stellar parallax at length answered one of the strongest and old- 
est arguments against the system. Since then have come many 
apologias in explanation and extenuation of the Church's decided 
stand in this matter for so many generations. 

Though Galileo himself was forced to his knees, unable to 
withstand his antagonists, his work lived on after him; he and 
Copernicus, together with Kepler and Newton stand out both 
as scientists and as leaders in the advance of intellectual enlight- 
enment. The account of their work and that of their less well- 
known supporters, compared with that of their antagonists, 
proves the truth of the ancient Greek saying which Rheticus used 
as the motto for the Narratio Prima, the first widely known ac- 
count of the Copernican system: "One who intends to phil- 
osophize must be free in mind." 



io6 



APPENDIX A. 

Ptolemy : Syntaxis Mat hematic a (Almagest) 

"That the earth has no movement of rotation," in Opera 
Qnce Exstant Omnia, edidit Pleiberg, Leipsic, 1898, Bk. I, sec. 7 : 
(I, 21-25) ; compared with the translation into French by 
Halma, Paris, 1813. 

By proofs similar to the preceding, it is shown that the earth 
cannot be transported obliquely nor can it be moved away from 
the center. For, if that were so, all those things would take 
place which would happen if it occupied any other point than 
that of the center. It seems unnecessary to me, therefore, to 
seek out the cause of attraction towards the center when it is 
once evident from the phenomena themselves, that the earth 
occupies the center of the universe and that all heavy bodies 
are borne towards it; and this will be readily understood if it 
is remembered that the earth has been demonstrated to have a 
spherical shape, and according to what we have said, is placed 
at the center of the universe, for the direction of the fall of 
heavy bodies (I speak of their own motions) is always and 
everywhere perpendicular to an uncurved plane drawn tangent 
to the point of intersection. Obviously these bodies would all 
meet at the center if they were not stopped by the surface, 
since a straight line drawn to the center is perpendicular' to a 
plane tangent to the sphere at that point. 

Those who consider it a paradox that a mass like the earth is 
supported on nothing, yet not moved at all, appear to me to ar- 
gue according to the preconceptions they get from what they 
see happening to small bodies about them, and not according to 
what is characteristic of the universe as a whole, and this is the 
cause of their mistake. For I think that such a thing would not 
have seemed wonderful to them any longer if they had per- 
ceived that the earth, great as it is, is merely a point in compar- 
ison to the surrounding body of the heaven. They would find 
that it is possible for the earth, being infinitely small relative to 
the universe, to be held in check and fixed by the forces exer- 
cised over it equally and following similar directions by the 
universe, which is infinitely great and composed of similar parts. 
There is neither up nor down in the universe, for that cannot 
be imagined in a sphere. As to the bodies which it encloses, 
by a consequence of their nature it happens that those that are 
light and subtle are as though blown by the wind to the out- 
side and to the circumference, and seem to appear to us to go 
up, because that is how we speak of the space above our heads 

ro7 



that envelops us. It happens on the other hand that heavy 
bodies and those composed of dense parts are drawn towards 
the middle as towards a center, and appear to us to fall down, 
because that it is the word we apply to what is beneath our feet 
in the direction of the center of the earth. But one should be- 
lieve that they are checked around this center by the retarding 
effect of shock and of friction. It would be admitted then that 
the entire mass of the earth, which is considerable in compari- 
son to the bodies falling on it, could receive these in their fall 
without acquiring the slightest motion from the shock of their 
weight or of their velocity. But if the earth had a movement 
which was common to it and to all other heavy bodies, it would 
soon seemingly outstrip them as a result of its weight, thus 
leaving the animals and the other heavy bodies without other 
support than the air, and would soon touch the limits of the 
heaven itself. All these consequences would seem most ridic- 
ulous if one were only even imagining them. 

There are those who, while they admit these arguments be- 
cause there is nothing to oppose them, pretend that nothing 
prevents the supposition, for instance, that if the sky is motion- 
less, the earth might turn on its axis from west to east, making 
this revolution once a day or in a very little less time, or that, 
if they both turn, it is around the same axis, as we have said, 
and in a manner conformable to the relations between them 
which we have observed. 

It has escaped these people that in regard to the appearances 
of the planets themselves, nothing perhaps prevents the earth 
from having the simpler motion ; but they do not realize how 
very ridiculous their opinion is in view of what takes place 
around us and in the air. For if we grant them that the light- 
est things and those composed of the subtlest parts do not 
move, which would be contrary to nature, while those that are 
in the air move visibly more swiftly than those that are terres- 
trial; if we grant them that the most solid and heavy bodies 
have a swift, steady movement of their own, though it is true 
however that they obey impelling forces only with difficulty ; 
they would be obliged to admit that the earth by its revolution 
has a movement more rapid than the movements taking place 
around it, since it would make so. great a circuit in so short a 
time. Thus the bodies which do not rest on it would appear 
always to have a motion contrary to its own, and neither the 
clouds, nor any missile or flying bird would appear to go to- 
wards the east, for the earth would always outstrip them in 
this direction, and would anticipate them by its own movement 
towards the east, with the result that all the rest would appear 
to move backwards towards the west. 

1 08 



If they should say that the atmosphere is carried along by 
the earth with the same speed as the earth's own revolution, it 
would be no less true that the bodies contained therein would 
not have the same velocity. Or if they were swept along with 
the air, no longer would anything seem to precede or to follow, 
but all would always appear stationary, and neither in flight 
nor in throwing would any. ever advance or retreat. That is, 
however, what we see happening, since neither the retardation 
nor the acceleration of anything is traceable to the movement 
of the earth. 



APPENDIX B. 

"To His Holiness, Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, 

Preface By Nicholas Copernicus to His Books on 
Revolutions." 

(A translation of the Prcefatio in Copernicus: De Revolution- 

ibus; pp. 3-S.) 

'T can certainly well believe, most holy Father, that, while 
mayhap a few will accept this my book which 1 have written con- 
cerning the revolutions of the spheres of the world, ascribing 
certain motions to the sphere of the earth, people will clamor 
that I ought to be cast out at once for such an opinion. Nor are 
my ideas so pleasing to me that I will not carefully weigh what 
others decide concerning them. And although I know that the 
meditations of philosophers are remote from the opinions of the 
unlearned, because it is their aim to seek truth in all things so 
far as it is permitted by God to the human reason, nevertheless 
I think that opinions wholly alien to the right ought to be driven 
out. Thus when I considered with myself what an absurd fairy- 
tale people brought up in the opinion, sanctioned by many ages, 
that the earth is motionless in the midst of the heaven, as if it 
were the center of it, would think it if I were to assert on the 
contrary that the earth is moved ; I hesitated long whether I 
would give to the light my commentaries composed in proof of 
this motion, or whether it would indeed be more satisfactory to 
follow the example of the Pythagoreans and various others who 
were wont to pass down the mysteries of philosophy not by 
books, but from hand to hand only to their friends and relatives, 
as the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus proves.^ But verily they 
seemed to me not to have done this, as some think, from any dis- 



'See Prowe : Nic. Cop. : III ; 128-137. 

log 



like to spreading their teachings, but lest the most beautiful 
things and those investigated with much earnestness by great 
men, should be despised by those to whom spending good work 
on any book is a trouble unless they make profit by it ; or if they 
are incited to the liberal study of philosophy by the exhortations 
and the example of others, yet because of the stupidity of their 
wits they are no more busily engaged among philosophers than 
drones among bees. When therefore I had pondered these mat- 
ters, the scorn which was to be feared on account of the novelty 
and the absurdity of the opinion impelled me for that reason to 
set aside entirely the book already drawn up. 

"But friends, in truth, have brought me forth into the light 
again, though I long hesitated and am still reluctant ; among 
these the foremost was Nicholas Schonberg, Cardinal of Capua, 
celebrated in all fields of scholarship. N.ext to him is that 
scholar, my very good friend, Tiedeman Giese, Bishop of Culm, 
most learned in all sacred matters, (as he is), and in all good 
sciences. He has repeatedly urged me and, sometimes even with 
censure, implored me to publish this book and to suffer it to see 
the light at last, as it has lain hidden by me not for nine years 
alone, but also into the fourth 'novenium'. Not a few other 
scholars of eminence also pleaded with me, exhorting me that I 
should no longer refuse to contribute my book to the common 
service of mathematicians on account of an imagined dread. 
They said that however absurd in many ways this my doctrine 
of the earth's motion might now appear, so much the greater 
would be the admiration and goodwill after people had seen by 
the publications of my commentaries the mists of absurdities 
rolled away by the most lucid demonstrations. Brought to this 
hope, therefore, by these pleaders, I at last permitted my 
friends, as they had long besought me, to publish this work. 

"But perhaps your Holiness will not be so shocked that I 
have dared to bring forth into the light these my lucubrations, 
having spent so much work in elaborating them, that I did not 
hesitate even to commit to a book my conclusions about the 
earth's motion, but that you will particularly wish to hear from 
me how it came into my mind to dare to imagine any motion of 
the earth, contrary to the accepted opinion of mathematicians 
and in like manner contrary to common sense. So I do not wish 
to conceal from your Holiness that nothing else moved me to 
consider some other explanation for the motions of the spheres of 
the universe than what I knew, namely that mathematicians did 
not agree among themselves in their examinations of these things. 
For in the first place, they are so completely undecided concern- 
ing the motion of the sun and of the moon that they could not 



no 



observe and prove the constant length of the great year/ Next, 
in determining the motions of both these and the five other plan- 
ets, they did not use the same principles and assumptions or even 
the same demonstrations of the appearances of revolutions and 
motions. For some used only homocentric circles ; others, eccen- 
trics and epicycles, which on being questioned about, they them- 
selves did not fully comprehend. For those who put their trust 
in homocentrics, although they proved that other diverse motions 
could be derived from these, nevertheless they could by no 
means decide on any thing certain which in the least correspond- 
ed to the phenomena. But these who devised eccentrics, even 
though they seem for the most part to have represented appar- 
ent m.otions by a number [of eccentrics] suitable to them, yet 
in the meantime they have admitted quite a few which appear 
to contravene the first principles of equality of motion. An- 
other notable thing, that there is a definite symmetry between 
the form of the universe and its parts, they could not devise or 
construct from these; but it is with them as if a man should 
take from different places, hands, feet, a head and other mem- 
bers, in the best way possible indeed, but in no way comparable 
to a single body, and in no respect corresponding to each other, 
so that a monster rather than a man would be constructed from 
them. Thus in the process of proof, which they call a system, 
they are found to have passed over some essential, or to have 
admitted some thing both strange and scarcely relevant. This 
would have been least likely to have happened to them if they 
had followed definite principles. For if the hypotheses they 
assumed were not fallacious, everything which followed out of 
them would have been verified beyond a doubt. However ob- 
scure may be what I now say, nevertheless in its own place it 
will be made more clear. 

"When therefore I had long considered this uncertainty of 
traditional mathematics, it began to weary me that no more def- 
inite explanation of the movement of the world machine estab- 
lished in our behalf by the best and most systematic builder of 
all, existed among the philosophers who had studied so exactly 
in other respects the minutest details in regard to the sphere. 
Wherefore I took upon myself the task of re-reading the books 
of all the philosophers which I could obtain, to seek out whether 
any one had ever conjectured that the motions of the spheres 
of the universe were other than they supposed who taught 
mathematics in the schools. And I found first that, according to 
Cicero, Nicetas had thought the earth was moved. Then later 
I discovered according to Plutarch that certain others had held 

V. e., the 15,000 solar years in which all the heavenly bodies complete 
their circuits and return to their original positions. 

Ill 



the same opinion; and in order that this passage may be avail- 
able to all, I wish to write it down here : 

"But while some say the earth stands still, Philolaus 
the Pythagorean held that it is moved about the element 
of fire in an obhque circle, after the same manner of 
motion that the sun and moon have. Heraclides of 
Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean assign a mo- 
tion to the earth, not progressive, but after the man- 
ner of a wheel being carried on its own axis. Thus 
the earth, they say, turns itself upon its own center 
from west to east."^ 

When from this, therefore, I had conceived its possibility 
I myself also began to meditate upon the mobility of the earth. 
And although the opinion seem.ed absurd, yet because I knew 
the liberty had been accorded to others before me of imagining 
whatsoever circles they pleased to explain the phenomena of the 
stars, I thought I also might readily be allowed to experiment 
whether, by supposing the earth to have some motion, stronger 
demonstrations than those of the others could be found as to 
the revolution of the celestial sphere. 

Thus, supposing these motions which I attribute to the earth 
later on in this book, I found at length by much and long obser- 
vation, that if the motions of the other planets were added to 
the rotation of the earth and calculated as for the revolution of 
that planet, not only the phenomena of the others followed from 
this, but also it so bound together both the order and magnitude 
of all the planets and the spheres and the heaven itself, that in 
no single part could one thing be altered without confusion among 
the other parts and in all the universe. Hence, for this reason, in 
the course of this work I have followed this system, so that in the 
first book I describe all the positions of the spheres together with 
the motions I attribute to the earth ; thus this book contains a 
kind of general disposition of the universe. Then in the re- 
maining books, I bring together the motions of the other plan- 
ets and all the spheres with the mobility of the earth, so that it 
can thence be inferred to what extent the motions and appear- 
ances of the other planets and spheres can be solved by attribu- 
ting motion to the earth. Nor do I doubt that skilled and schol- 
arly mathematicians will agree with me if, what philosophy 
requires from the beginning, they will examine and judge, not 
casually but deeply, what I have gathered together in this book to 
prove- these things. In order that learned and unlearned may 
alike see that in no way whatsoever I evade judgment, I prefer 

'Plutarch: Moralia: De Placitis PhilosopJwrum, Lib. Ill, c. 13 (V. 326). 

112 



P R AI }■ A T I O AVTHORIS. 

rent circihos ad dcmonflrandum phanomicna aflrorum . Exilti- 
m;iv I milii quoquc facile permitri, nc cxpcnrem, an pofito terra: aJi- 
quo motu firmiorcs demonftrarioncs, quam illorum client, invcni- 
ninrLVoIiJCioneorbiumca;lcftjum pollcnt. 

Atqucitaegopolkismotibus, quos terra; infra in operc tribuo, 
jmiica 5c longa obfcrvationc tandem rcpcri, quodfi reliquoruin ly- 
dcrLimer}-anriummocus,ad terra; circulacionem conferancur, & 
fupputenturpro cujLifqLicf)-dcrisrcvolunone, non modo illorum 
pha;nomena mdelequancur, fed &fydcrum atqucorbium omnium 
ordmes,magnitudincs, & caelum ipfum uaconncdiat, ut in nulla 
fin parte ponittranfponialiquKi, fine rcliquarum partium, ac totius 
univerfltatis confLiiionc. Proinde quoque & in progrefTu opens 
hunc fecutus fum ordinem ut in prime libro dcfcribam omncs pofi- 
tiones orbiura, cum terra:, quos ei tribuo, motibus^ utis libcr con- 
tineat communcm quaficonftitutionemuniverfi. In reliquis vcro 
librispofteaconf'cro reliquoruin (yderum atquc omnium orbium 
motus, cum terra; mobilitatc, ut inde colligi pollit, quatenus reli- 
quorumfyderum atque orbium motus & apparently falvaripofBnr, 
fiad terra; motus conferantur. Neque dubito, quiningcnioll atque 
dodti Matliemarici mihi aftipulaturi lint, fi quod haec pinlofophia la 
ptim!sexigif,noBO'biter, fed penitus,eaqux ad harum rerum dc- 
monftrationcm a me inhoLCopere, adferuncur, cognofcereatqtfc 
cxpenderc voluerint. Vt vcro panter do J^i atque indodi vidercnt, 
me nullius omnmo fubterfugerc judicium , maUu tua: Saditati, 
quamcuiquamalteribas.mcas lucubrationes dedicate, propterea 
quod &:m hoc remotilTangulo tcnx,in quo ego ago,ordinis digni- 
tate, S< hterarum omnium atque Mathematiccs ctiam aiiiorc, cmi- 
ncntifs. habeariSjUt facile tua authoritate «?cjudicio calumniancium 
niorfusreprimcrepofris,ctfi in.proverbioiic, non clle remcdium 
advcrfiis Sycopliar.ty morfiim. 

Si fertile crunt uj»7»(oAo^(^ai cum^mniiydi Marh 
rriint,/ame>n de iUisjudicuHriir 
^^jtei^^Tale^luum |MT)pofi 
LooinflioitLiirn-eprehyic' 
etianViHoi^ual J u. J i ci uuh t; 
_errin^T)lcuTiimT-fl:P,jAl:anr 
5(1 a plv; mitre urn p.^ur.T 

ridet ccJy'/qu' tei/1-ani 







A photographic facsimile (reduced) of a pag^ from MuHer's edition 
(1617) as "corrected" according to the Monitum of the Congregations 
ni 1620. The first writer merely underlined the passage with marginal 
comment that this was to be deleted by ecclesiastical order. The sec- 
ond writer scratched out the passage and refered to the second volume of 
Riccioh's Almagcstum Novum for the . text of the order. The earlier 
writer was probably the librarian of the Florentine convent from which 
this book came, and wrote this soon after 1620. The later writer did 
his work after 1651, when Riccioli's book was published. This copy of 
the Dc Rcz'olutionibiis is now in the Dartmouth College Library. 



113 



to dedicate these my lucubrations to your Holiness rather than 
to any one else; especially because even in this very remote 
corner of the earth in which I live, you are held so very eminent 
by reason of the dignity of your position and also for your love 
of all letters and of mathematics that, by your authority and 
your decision, you can easily suppress the malicious attacks of 
calumniators, even though proverbially there is no remedy 
against the attacks of sycophants. 

If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together 
with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon them- 
selves to decide concerning these things, and because of some 
place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, 
should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance 
to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash. For 
it is not unknown that Lactantius, the writer celebrated in other 
ways but very little in mathematics, spoke somewhat childishly of 
the shape of the earth when he derided those who declared the 
earth had the shape of a ball.^ So it ought not to surprise stu- 
dents if such should laugh at us also. Mathematics is written for 
mathematicians to whom these our labors, if I am not mistaken, 
will appear to contribute something even to the ecclesiastical 
state the headship of which your Holiness now occupies. For it 
is not so long ago under Leo X when the question arose in the 
Lateran Council about correcting the Ecclesiastical Calendar. It 
was left unsettled then for this reason alone, that the length of 
the year and of the months and the movements of the sun and 
moon had not been satisfactorily determined. From that time 
on, I have turned my attention to the more accurate observation 
of these, at the suggestion of that most celebrated scholar, Fath- 
er Paul, a bishop from Rome, who was the leader then in that 
matter. What, however, I may have achieved in this, I leave to 
the decision of your Holiness especially, and to all other learned 
mathematicians. And lest I seem to your Holiness to promise 
more about the value of this work than I can perform, I now 
pass on to the undertaking. 

APPENDIX C 

The Drama of Universal Nature: in which are considered 
the efficient causes and the ends of all things, discussed in a 
connected series of five books, by Jean Bodin, (Frankfort, 
1597). 

Book V : On the Celestial Bodies : their number, movement, size, 
harmony and distances compared with themselves and with 
the earth. Sections 1 and 10 (in part) and 12 (entire). 

^These two sentences the Congregations in 1620 ordered struck out, as 
part of their "corrections." 1 15 



(BoDiN, Jean: UniverscB Naturce Theatrum in quo reriim om- 
nium effectrices causa et fines contemplantur, et continues se- 
ries quinque libris discutiuntur. Frankfort, 1597. Book V 
translated into English by the writer and compared with the 
French translation by Frangois de Fougerolles, (Lyons, 1597). 

Section 1: On the definition and the number of the spheres. 

Mystagogue:. . .Now to prove that the heavens have a na- 
ture endowed with intelligence I need no other argument than 
that by which Theophrastus and Alexander prove they are liv- 
ing, for, they say, if the heavens did not have intelligence, they 
would be greatly inferior in dignity and excellence to men. 
That is why Aben-Ezra,^ having interpreted the Hebrew of these 
two words of the Psalm : "The heavens declare," has written that 
the phrase Sapperim (declare) in the judgment of all Hebrews 
is appropriate to such great intelligence. Also he who said 
"When the morning stars sang together and shouted for joy,"- 
indicated a power endowed with intelHgence, as did the Master 
of Wisdom^ also when he said that God created the heavens 
with intelligence. 

Theodore. I have learned in the schools that the spheres are 
not moved of themselves but that they have separate intelli- 
gences who incite them to movement. 

Myst. That is the doctrine of Aristotle. But Theophrastus 
and Alexander,* (when they teach that the spheres are animated 
bodies) explain adequately that the spheres are agitated by their 
own coessential soul. For if the sky were turned by an intelli- 
gence external to it, its movement would be accidental with the 
result that it, and the stars with it, would not be moved other- 
wise, than as a body without soul. But accidental motion is vio- 
lent. And nothing violent in nature can be of long duration. 
On the contrary there is nothing of longer duration, nor more 
constant, than the movement of the heavens. 

Theo. What do you call fixed stars? 

Myst. Celestial beings who are gifted with intelligence and 
with light, and who are in continual motion. This is sufficiently 
indicated by the words of DanieP when he wrote, that the souls 
of those who have walked justly in this life, and who have 
brought men back to the path of virtue, all have their seat and 

^As Rabbi David testified on the 19th Psalm [these footnotes are by 
Bodin]. 
7ob: 38. 'Proverbs. 

*Metaphysics : II. c. 6, de Coelo. I. c. 6. 
^In his last chapter. 

ii6 



dwelling (like the gleaming stars) among the heavens. By these 
words one can plainly understand the essence and figure of the 
angels as well as of the celestial beings ; for while other beings 
have their places in this universe assigned to them for their hab- 
itation, as the fish the sea, the cattle the fields, and the wild 
beasts the mountains and forests, even as Origen,^ Eusebius, and 
Diodorus say, so the stars are assigned positions in the heavens. 
This can also be understood by the curtains of the tabernacle 
which Moses, the great Lawgiver, had ornamented with the im 
ages of cherubim showing that the heavens were indicated by 
the angelic faces of the stars. While St. Augustine,^ Jerome,^ 
Thomas Aquinas* and Scotus most fitly called this universe a 
being, nevertheless Albertus, Damascenus, and Thomas Aquinas 
deny that the heavenly bodies are animated. But Thomas Aquin- 
as shows himself in this inconsistent and contradictory, for he 
confesses that spiritual substances are united with the heavenly 
bodies, which could not be unless they were united in the same 
hypostasis of an animated body. If this body is animated, it 
must necessarily be living and either rational or irrational. If, 
on the other hand, this spiritual substance does not make the 
same hypostasis with the celestial body, it will necessarily be that 
the movement of the sky is accidental, as coming from the mover 
outside to the thing moved, no more nor less than the movement 
of a wheel comes from the one who turns it : As this is ab- 
surd, what follows from it is necessarily absurd also. 

Theo. How many spheres are there? 

Myst. It is difficult to determine their number because of the 
variety of opinions among the authorities,, each differing from 
the other, and because of the inadequacy of the proofs of such 
things. For Eudoxus has stated that the spheres with their 
deferents are not more than three and twenty in number. Calip- 
pus has put it at thirty, and Aristotle^ at forty-seven, which 
Alexander Aphrodisiensis® has amended by adding to it two more 
on the advice of Sosigenes. Ptolemy holds that there are 31 
celestial spheres not including the bodies of the planets. Johan 
Regiomontanus says 33, an opinion which is followed by nearly 
all, because in the time of Ptolemy they did not yet know that 
the eighth sphere and all the succeedins: ones are carried around 
by the movement of the trepidation. Thus he held that the moon 



^Which is confirmed by Pico of Mirandola : Heptaplus : Bk. V. 
^Enchiridion : cap. 43 ; Gen. : 2 and 18. 

'On Psalm: Audite coeli. *Summa: pt. 1, art. 3, ques. 70. 
'Metaphy. XII. 

*In his commentaries on Book XII of Metaph. where he gives the 
opinion of Calippus and Eudoxus. 

117 



has five orbits, Mercury six, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn 
each four, aside from the bodies of the planets themselves, for 
beyond these are still the spheres and deferents of the eighth 
and ninth spheres. But Copernicus, reviving Eudoxus' idea, 
held that the earth moved around the motionless sun ; and he has 
also removed the epicycles with the result that he has greatly 
reduced their number, so that one can scarcely find eight spheres 
remaining. 

Theo. What should one do with such a variety of opinions? 

Myst. Have recourse to the sacred fountain of the Hebrews 
to search out the mysteries of a thing so deeply hidden from 
man ; for from them we may obtain an absolutely certain de- 
cision. The Tabernacle which the great Lawgiver Moses or- 
dered to be made^ was like the Archetype of the universe, with 
its ten curtains placed around it each decorated with the figures 
of cherubim thus representing the ten heavens with the beauty 
of their resplendent stars. And even though Aben-Ezra did not 
know of the movement of trepidation, nevertheless he inter- 
preted this passage, "The heavens are the work of Thy fingers" 
as indicating the number of the ten celestial spheres. The Py- 
thagoreans seem also to have agreed upon the same number 
since, besides the earth and the eight heavens, they imagine a 
sphere Anticthon because they did not then clearly understand 
the celestial movements. They thought however, all should be 
embraced in the tenth. 

Theo. The authority of such writers has indeed so great 
weight with me that I place their statements far in advance of 
the arguments of all others. Nevertheless if it can be done, I 
should wish to have this illustrated and confirmed by argument 
in order to satisfy those who believe nothing except on absolute 
proof. 

Myst. It can indeed be proved that there are ten mobile 
spheres in which the fiery bodies accomplish their regular 
courses. Yet by these arguments that ultimate, motionless 
sphere which embraces and encircles all from our terrestial abode 
to its circumference within its crystalline self, encompassing 
plainly the utmost shores and limits of the universe, cannot be 
proved. For as it has been shown before [in Book I] the 
elemental world was inundated by celestial waters from above. 
Nor can it apparently be included in the number of the spheres 
since (as we will point out later) as great a distance exists be- 
tween it and the nearest sphere as between the ocean and the 
starrv heaven. Furthermore it has been said before that the es- 



^Ex. XVIII and following. Philo Judseus in the Allegories. 
ii8 



sence of the spheres consists of fire and water which is not fitting 
for the celestial waters above. 

Theo. By what arguments then can it be proved there are ten 
spheres ? 

Myst. The ancients knew well that there were the seven 
spheres of the planets, and an eighth sphere of the fixed stars 
which, down to the time of Eudoxus and Meto, they thought had 
but one simple movement. These men were the first who per- 
ceived by observation that the fixed stars were carried back- 
ward quite contrary to the movement of the Primum Mobile. 
After them came Timochares, Hipparchus, and Menelaus, and 
later Ptolemy, who confirmed these observations perceiving that 
the fixed stars (which people had hitherto thought were fixed in 
their places) had been separated from their station. For this 
reason they thought best to add a ninth sphere to the eight in- 
ferior ones. Much later an Arabian and a Spanish king, Men- 
sor and Alphonse, great students of the celestial sciences, in their 
observations noticed that the eighth sphere with the seven fol- 
lowing moved in turning from the north to the east, then 
towards the south, and so to the west, finally returning to the 
north, and that such a movement was completed in 7000 years. 
This Johannus Regiomontanus, a Franconian, has proved, with 
a skill hitherto equalled only by that of those who proved the 
ninth sphere, which travels from west to east. From this it is 
necessarily concluded that there are ten spheres. 

Theo. Why so? 

Myst. Because every natural body^ has but one movement 
which is its own by nature ; all others are either voluntary or 
through violence, contrary to the nature of a mobile object; for 
just as a stone cannot of its own impulse ascend and descend, 
so one and the same sphere cannot of itself turn from the east 
to the west and from the west to the east and still less from the 
north to the south and south to north. 

Theo. What then? 

Myst. It follows from this that the extremely rapid move- 
ment by which all the spheres are revolved in twenty- four hours, 
belongs to the Primum Mobile, which we call the tenth sphere, 
and which carries with it all the nine lesser spheres ; that the 
second or planetary movement, that is, from west to east, is 
communicated to the lesser spheres and belongs to the ninth 
sphere ; that the third movement, resembling a person stagger- 
ing, belongs to the eighth sphere with which it afifects the other 
lesser spheres and makes them stagger in a measure outside of 
the poles, axes and centres of the greater spheres. 



^Aristotle: Metaph. II and XII and de Coelo I. 

ng 



Section 10: On the position of the universe according to its 
divisions. 



Theo. Does it not also concern Physics to discuss those 
things that He outside the universe? 

Myst. If there were any natural body beyond the heavens, 
most assuredly it would concern Physics, that is, the observer 
and student of nature. But in the book of Origins,^ the Master 
workman is said to have separated the waters and placed the 
firmament in between them. The Hebrew philosophers declare 
that the crystalline sphere which EzekieP called the great crystal 
and upon which he saw God seated, as he wrote, is as far be- 
yond the farthermost heaven as our ocean is far from that heav- 
en, and that this orb is motionless and therefore is called God's 
throne. For "seat" implies quiet and tranquility which could 
be proper for none other than the one immobile and immu- 
table God. This is far more probable and likely than Aristotle's 
absurd idea, unworthy the name of a philosopher, by which he 
placed the eternal God in a moving heaven as if He were its 
source of motion and in such fashion that He was constrained 
of necessity to move it. We have already refuted this idea. It 
has also been shown that these celestial waters full of fertility 
and productiveness sometimes are spread abroad more widely 
and' sometimes less so, as though obviously restrained, whence 
the heavens are said to be closed^ and roofed* with clouds or that 
floods burst forth out of the heaven to inundate the earth. Final- 
ly we read in the Holy Scriptures that the eternal God is seated 
upon the flood. 

Theo. Why then are not eleven spheres counted? 

Myst. Because the crystalline sphere is said to have been 
separated from the inferior waters by the firmament, and it 
therefore cannot be called a heaven. Furthermore motion is 
proper to all the heavens, but the crystalline one is stationary. 
That is why Rabi Akiba called^ it a marble counterpart of the 
universe. This also is signified in the construction of the altar 
which was covered with a pavilion in addition to its ten curtains 
for, as it is stated elsewhere,^ God covers the heavens with 
clouds, and the Scriptures often make mention of the waters be- 
yond the heavens.'' There are those, however, who teach that 
the Hebrew word Scamajim may be applied only to a dual num- 



'Gen.: 1. ^Chap. 1 and 10. Exod.: 24. 

•I Kings : 8. Deut. : 28. *Psalm 146. 

'According to Maymon: Perplexorum, III. *Psalm 147. 
'Psalm 148. Gen. 1 and 7. 



120 



ber, so that they take it to mean the crystalHne sphere and the 
starry one. But I think those words in Solomon's speech^ "the 
heaven of heaven, and the heavens of the heavens" refer in the 
singular to the crystalline sphere, in the plural to the ten lesser 
spheres. 

Theo. It does not seem so marvelous to me that an aqueous 
or crystalline sphere exists beyond the ten spheres, as that it is 
as far beyond the furthermost sphere as the ocean is far this side 
of.it, that is, as astrologists teach, 1040 terrestrial diameters. 

Myst. It is written most plainly that the firmament holds the 
middle place between the two waters. Therefore God is called^ 
in Hebrew Helion, the Sun, that is, the Most High, and under 
His feet the heaven is spread like a crystal,^ although He is 
neither excluded nor included in any part of the universe, it is 
however consistent with His Majesty to be above all the spheres 
and to fill heaven and earth with His infinite power as Isaiah* 
indicated when he writes : "His train filled the temple ;" it is the 
purest and simplest act, the others are brought about by forces 
and powers. He alone is incorporeal, others are corporeal or 
joined to bodies. He alone is eternal, others according to their 
nature are transitory and fleeting unless they are strengthened 
by the Creator's might; wherefore the Chaldean interpreter is 
seen everywhere to have used the words, Majesty, Glory or 
Power in place of the presence of God. 

Theo. Nevertheless so vast and limitless a space must be 
filled with air or fire, since there are no spheres there, nor will 
nature suffer any vacuum. 

Myst. If then the firmament occupies the middle position be- 
tween the two waters, then by this hypothesis you must admit 
that the space beyond the spheres is empty of elemental and 
celestial bodies ; otherwise you would have to admit that the last 
sphere extends on even to the crystalline orb, which can in no 
way be reconciled with the Holy Scriptures and still less with 
reason because of the incredible velocity of this sphere. There- 
fore it is far more probable that this space is filled with angels. 

Theo. Is there some medium between God and the angels 
which shares in the nature of both ? 

Myst. What is incorporeal and indivisible cannot communi- 
cate any part of its essence to another ; for if a creature had any 
part of the divine essence, it would be all God, since God neither 
has parts nor can be divided, therefore He must be separated 
from all corporeal contact or intermixture. 



^Also in Psalm 67 and 123. 

'Psalm 92. 'Exod. 24. Ezek. 1, 10. *Isa. 6. 



121 



Section 12: On guardian angels. 

Theo. What then in corporeal nature is closest to God? 

My'st. The two Seraphim, who stand near the eternal Cre- 
ator/ and who are said to have six wings, two wherewith to fly, 
the others to cover head and feet. By this is signified the ad- 
mirable swiftness with which they fulfill His commands, yet head 
and feet are veiled for so the purpose of their origin and its 
earliest beginning are not known to us. Also they have eyes scat- 
tered in all parts of their bodies to indicate that nothing is hid- 
den from them. And they also pour oil for lighting through a 
funnel into the seven-branched candlestick; that is, strength and 
power are poured forth by the Creator to the seven planets, so 
that we should turn from created things to the worship and 
love of the Creator. 

Theo. Since nothing is more fitting for the Divine goodness 
than to create, to generate, and to pile up good things for all, 
whence comes the destruction of the world and the ruin of all 
created things? 

Myst. It is true Plato and Aristotle attributed the cause of 
all ills to the imperfection of matter in which they thought was 
some kakopoion,^ but that is absurd since it is distinctly writ- 
ten: All that God had made was good, or as the Hebrews ex- 
press it, beautiful, — so evil is nothing else than the absence^ or 
privation of good. 

Theo. Can not wicked angels be defined without privation 
since they are corporeal essences? 

Myst. Anything that exists is said to be good and to be a 
participant by its existence in the divine goodness ; and even 
as in a well regulated Republic, executioners, lictors, and 
corpse-bearers are no less necessary than magistrates, judges 
and overseers ; so in the Republic of this world, for the gen- 
eration, management and guardianship of things God has gath- 
ered together angels as leaders and directors for all the celes- 
tial places, for the elements, for living beings, for plants, for 
minerals, for states, provinces, families and individuals. And not 
only has He done this, but He has also assigned His servants, 
lictors, avengers and others to places where they may do noth- 
ing without His order, nor inflict any punishment upon wicked 
men unless the affair has been known fully and so decided. 



'Isa. 6. Ezek. 1 and 10. Zach. 4. Exod. 24, 25. 
*MaIeficium quidam, i. e., some evil-power. Job 5. 
^Augustine against Faustus wrote that vanity is not produced from the 
dust, nor evil from the earth. 

122 



Thus God is said^ to have made Leviathan, which is the out- 
flow of Himself, that is, the natural rise and fall of all things. 
"I have created a killer,"^ He said, "to destroy," and so also 
Behemoth, and the demons cleaving to him, which are often 
called ravens, eagles and lions, and which are said to beg their 
food of God, that is, the taking of vengeance upon the wicked 
whose punishment and death they feed upon as upon ordinary 
fare. From these, therefore, or rather from ourselves, come 
death, pestilence, famine, war and those things we call ills, and 
not from the Author of all good things except by accident. 
For so God says of Himself :^ 'T am the God making good and 
creating evil, making light and creating darkness." For when 
He withdraws His spirit, evil follows the good; when He 
takes the light away, darkness is created; as when one removes 
the pillars of a building, the ruin of a house follows. If He 
takes the vital spark away^ death follows; nor can He be said 
to do evil* to anyone in taking back what is His own. 

Theo. When the Legislator asked Him to disclose His face 
to his gaze, why did the Architect of the universe and the 
Author of all things reply : "My face is to be seen by no mortal 
man, but only my back?" 

Myst. This fine allegory signifies that God cannot be known 
from superior or antecedent causes but from behind His back, 
that is, from results, for a Httle later He adds, 'T will cover 
thine eyes with My hand." Thus the hand signifies those works 
which He has placed before anyone's eyes, and it indicates that 
He places man not in an obscure corner but in the center of the 
universe so that He might better and more easily than in heaven 
contemplate the universe and all His works through the sight of 
which, as through spectacles, the Sun, that is, God Himself, may 
be disclosed. And therefore we undertook this disputation con- 
cerning nature and natural things, so that even if they are but 
slightly explained, nevertheless we may attain from this dis- 
quisition an imperfect knowledge of the Creator and may break 
forth in His praises with all our might, that at length by degrees 
we may be borne on high and be blessed by the Divine reward ; 
for this is indeed the supreme and final good for a man. 

Here endeth the Drama of Nature which 
Jean Bodin wrote while all France was 
aflame with civil war. 

Finis 



7ob 41 and 49. Isa. 54. Ezek. 31. 'Isa. 54. 'Isa. 45. *Job 34. 

123 



APPENDIX D. 
A Translation of a Letter by Thomas Feyens 

On the Question : Is It True That the Heavens Are 
Moved and the Earth Is at Rest? (February, 1619) 

(Thomce Fieni Epistolica Qucestio: An verum sit, coelum 
moveri et terram quiescere? Londini, 1655.) 

To the eminent and noble scholars, Tobias Matthias and 
George Gays : 

IT is proved that the heavens are moved and the earth is sta- 
tionary : First ; by authority ; for besides the fact that this is 
asserted by Aristotle and Ptolemy whom wellnigh all Philos- 
ophers and Mathematicians have followed by mianimous con- 
sent, except for Copernicus, Bernardus Patricius^ and a very few 
others, the Holy Scriptures plainly attest it in at least two places 
which I have seen. In Joshua,- are the words : Steteruntque 
sol et luna donee ulcisceretur gens de inimicis suis. And a little 
further on: Stetit itaque sol in medio coeli, et non festinavit 
occumbere spatio unius diei, et non fuit antea et postea tarn 
longa dies. The Scriptures obviously refer by these words to 
the motion of the primum mobile by which the sun and the 
moon are borne along in their diurnal course and the day is de- 
fined; and it indicates that the heavens are moved as well as 
the primum mobile. Then Ecclesiastes, chapter 1,^ reads: Gen- 
eratio prseterit, et generatio advenit, terra autem semper stat, 
oritur sol et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur. 

Secondly, it is proved by reason. All the heavens and stars 
were made in man's behalf and, with other terrestrial bodies, 
are the servants of man to warm, light, and vivify him. 

This they could not do unless in moving they applied them- 
selves by turns to different parts of the world. And it is more 
likely that they would apply themselves by their own move- 
ment to man and the place in which man lives, than that man 
should come to them by the movement of his own seat or hab- 
itation. For they are the servants of man; man is not their 

"^Feyens probably refers here to Francesco Patrizzi, who was an enemy 
of the peripatetics and a great supporter of platonism. He died in 1597 
at Rome, where Clement VIII had conferred on him the chair of philos- 
ophy. 

'Joshua X: 13-14. 'Ecclesiastes I: 4. 

124 



servant; therefore it is more probable that the heavens are 
moved and the earth is at rest than that the reverse is true. 

Thirdly; no probable argument can be thought out from phi- 
losophy to prove that the earth is moved and the heavens are at 
rest. Nor can it be done by mathematics. By saying that the 
heavens are moved and the earth is at rest, all phenomena of 
the heavenly bodies can be solved. Just as in the same way in 
optics all can be solved by saying either that sight comes from 
the thing to the eye, or that rays go from the eye to the thing 
seen; so is it in astronomy. Therefore one ought rather to 
abide in the ancient and general opinion than in one received 
recently without justification. 

Fourthly; the earth is the center of the universe; all the 
heavenly bodies are observed to be moved around it; therefore 
it itself ought to be motionless, for anything that moves, it 
seems, should move around or above something that is motion- 
less. 

Fifthly; if the earth is moved in a circle, either it moves that 
way naturally or by force, either by its own nature or by the 
nature of another. It is not by its own nature, for straight 
motion from above downward is natural to it; therefore circu- 
lar motion could not be natural to it. Further, the earth is a 
simple body; and a simple body can not have two natural mo- 
tions of distinct kinds or classes. Nor is it moved by another 
body; for by what is it moved? One has to say it is moved 
either by the sun or by some other celestial body ; and this cannot 
be said, since either the sun or that body is said to be at rest or in 
motion. If it is said to be at rest, then it cannot impart movement 
to another. If it is said to be in motion, then it can not move the 
earth, because it ought to move either by a motion similar to its 
own or the opposite of it. It is not similar, since thus it would 
be observed to move neutrally as when two boats moving in 
the same direction, appear not to move but to be at rest. It is 
not the opposite motion, since nothing could give motion con- 
trary to its own. And because Galileo seems to say, in so far 
as I have learned from your lordships, that the earth was 
moved by the sun ; I prove anyway that this is not true since 
the movement of the sun and of the earth ought to be 
from contrary and, distinct poles. The sun, however, can not 
be the cause of the other's movement because it is moved above 
dififerent poles. Lastly, the earth follows the motion of no 
other celestial body; since if it is moved, it moves in 24 hours, 
and all the other celestial bodies require the space of many 
days, months and years. Ergo. Finally, if the earth is moved 
by another, its motion would be violent; but this is absurd, for 
no violence can be regular and perpetual. 

"5 



Sixthly; even so it is declared that the earth is moved. Nev- 
ertheless, it must be admitted to this that either the planets 
themselves or their spheres are moved, for in no other way can 
the diversities of aspects among themselves be solved; nor can 
a reason be given why the sun does not leave the Ecliptic and 
the moon does; and how a planet can be stationary or retro- 
grade, high or low, — and many other phenomena. For this 
reason those who said the earth moved, as Bernardus Patricius 
and the others said, claimed that the primum mobile, forsooth, 
was stationary and that the earth was moved in its place; yet 
they could not in the least deny that the planets themselves were 
moved, but admitted it. That is the reason why both ancient 
and modern mathematicians, aside from the motion of the 
primum mobile, were forced to admit and consider the peculiar 
movements of the planets themselves. If therefore it must be 
acknowledged, and it is certain, that the stars and the celestial 
bodies are moved; then it is more probable that all movement 
perceived in the universe belongs rather to the heavenly bodies 
than to the earth. For if movement were ascribed to all the rest, 
why for that same reason is not diurnal rotation ascribed rather 
to the primum mobile than to the earth, particularly when our 
senses seem to decide thus? Although one may well be mis- 
taken, sometimes, concerning other similar movements ; yet it 
is not probable that all ages could be at fault, or should be, 
about the movements of its most important objects, of course 
the celestial luminaries. 

Seventhly; it is proved by experience. For if the earth is 
moved, then an arrow shot straight up on high could never fall 
back to the place whence it was shot, but should fall some- 
where many miles away. But this is not so. Ergo. 

This can be answered and is so customarily in this way: this 
does not follow because the air is swept along with the earth, 
and so, since the air which carries the arrow is turning in the 
same way with the earth, the arrow also is borne along equally 
with it, and thus returns to the same spot. This in truth is a 
pure evasion and a worthless answer for many reasons. 

It is falsely observed that the air is moved and by the same 
motion as the earth. For what should move the earth? Truly, 
if the air is moved by the same motion as the earth, either it 
ought to be moved by the earth itself, or by that other 
which moves the earth, or by itself. It is not moved by itself ; 
since it has another motion, the straight one of course natural 
to itself, and also since it has a nature, an essence and qualities 
all different from the nature and the essence of the earth ; there- 
fore it could not by its own nature have the same motion as that 
other, but of necessity ought to have a different one. 

126 



Nor is it moved by any other that may move the earth ; as that 
which moves the earth could not at the same time and with 
hke motion move the air. For since the air is different from 
the earth in essence, in both active and passive quahties, and in 
kind of substance, it can not receive the impeUing force of the 
acting body, or that force appHed in the same way as the earth, 
and so could not be moved in the same way. The virtues [of 
bodies] acting and of moving diversely are received by the 
recipients according to the diversity of their dispositions. Also 
it can not be moved by the earth ; since if it were moved by the 
earth, it must be said to be moved by force, but such motion 
appears to be impossible. Ergo. The minor premise is 
proved: for if air is thus moved by the earth by force the air 
ought to be moved more rapidly than the earth, because air is 
larger [than the earth]. 

For what is outside is larger than what is inside. When, 
however, what is larger and what is outside is driven around 
equally rapidly with what is less\ and what is inside, then the 
former is moved much more rapidly. Thus it is true that the 
sphere of Saturn in its daily course is moved far faster than the 
sphere of the moon. But it is impossible that the one driven 
should move more rapidly than the one driving; therefore the 
air is not moved by the earth's violence. Thus would it be if 
the air were moved with the earth, or by itself, or by force. 
Thus far, then, the force of the original argument remains ; 
since of its own motion, indeed, it could not be in every way 
conformable to the motion of the earth as I have shown; and 
this because the air differs from the earth in consistency of 
substance, in qualities and in essence. But the air ought at all 
events to move more sluggishly than the earth. It follows 
from this that an arrow shot straight up could not return to its 
starting point; for the earth, moving like the air, on account of 
the other's slower rate leaves it behind, and the arrow also 
which is carried away from it. 

Besides, if the air does not move so rapidly as the earth, a 
man living in a very high tower, however quiet the air, ought 
then always to feel the strongest wind and the greatest disturb- 
ance of the air. 

Since mountains and towers are moved with the earth, and 
the air would not be accompanying them at an equal speed, it 
would necessarily follow that they would precede the air by 
cleaving and cutting and ploughing through it which ought to 
make a great wind perceptible. 

Eighthly; if a person stood in some very high tower or other 
high place and aimed from that tower at some spot of earth per- 
pendicularly below his eye, and allowed a very heavy stone to 

127 



fall following that perpendicular line, it is absolutely certain that 
that stone would land upon the spot aimed at perpendicularly 
underneath. But if the earth is moved, it would be impossible for 
the stone to strike that spot. 

This I prove first: because either the air moves at an un- 
equal rate with the earth; or it moves equally rapidly. If not 
equally, then it is certain the stone could not land at that spot, 
since the earth's movement would outstrip the stone borne bv 
the air. If equally rapidly, then again the stone could not land 
at that spot, since although the air was moving in itself at an 
equal speed, yet on that account it could not carry the stone 
thus rapidly with itself and carrying it downward falling by 
its own weight, for the stone tending by gravity towards the 
center resists the carrying of the air. 

You will say: if the earth is moved in a circle, so are all its 
parts ; wherefore that stone in falling not only moves in a circle 
by the carrying of^ the air, but also in a circle because of its 
own nature as being part of the earth and having the same 
motion with it. 

Verily this answer is worthless. For although the stone is 
turned in a circle by its own nature like the earth, yet its own 
natural gravity impeded it so that it is borne along that much 
the less swiftly, unlike the air or the earth, both of which are 
in their natural places and which in consequence have no grav- 
ity as a stone falling from on high has. 

Lastly; because although the stone is moved in the world 
by its own nature like the whole earth, yet it is not borne along 
as swiftly as the whole earth. For as one stone by its own 
weight falls from the heaven following its own direct motion 
straight to the center just as a part of the earth, so also the 
whole earth itself would fall ; and yet it would not fall so 
swiftly as the whole earth, for although the stone would be 
borne along in its sphere like the whole earth just as a part of 
it, yet it would not be borne along as swiftly as the whole earth ; 
and so, in whatever way it is said, the motion of the earth ought 
always to outstrip the stone and leave it a long distance behind. 
Thus a stone could never fall at the point selected or a point 
perpendicularly beneath it. This is false. Ergo. 

Ninthly: If the earth is moved in a circular orbit, it ought to 
pass from the west through the meridian to the east ; conse- 
quently the air ought to move by the same path. But if this 
were so, then if an archer shot toward the east, his arrow ought 
to fly much farther than if he shot toward the west. For when 
he shot toward the east, the arrow would fly with the natural 
movement of the air and would have that supporting it. But 
when he shot toward the west, he would have the motion of the 

128 



air against him and then the arrow would struggle against it. 
But it is certain the arrow ought to go much farther and faster 
when the movement of the air is favorable to it then when 
against it, as is obvious in darts sent out with a favoring wind. 
Ergo. 

Similarly not a few other arguments can be worked out, but 
there are none as valuable for proof as the foregoing ones. 
Though these were written by me with a flying pen far from 
books and sick in bed with a broken leg, yet they seem to me to 
have so much value that I do not see any way by which they 
could rightly be refuted. These I have written for your gracious 
lordships in gratitude for your goodwill on the occasion of our 
conversation at your dinner four days, ago ; and I ask for them 
that you meditate on them justly and well. 



129 



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142 



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144 



INDEX 



Addison, J., 91-92. 

Agricola, G. L., 11 . 

Albategnius, 15. 

Allaben, F., 103. 

Alphonse X of Castile, 15, 119. 

Ambrose, 16. 

Arabian astronomers, 15, 16, 20, 

119. 
Archimedes, 11. 
Aristarchus ot Samos, ll-12n., 13, 

27n., 43, 46. 
Aristotle, 10, 18, 72, 81, 116, 117, 

120, 122, 124. 
Augustine, 16, 17, 18. 

Bacon, Francis, 50, 72-73. 

Bacon, Roger, 20. 

Bayle, Pierre, 95-96. 

Bellarmin, Cardinal, 56, 58-59, 66. 

Benedict XIV, 69. 

Bessel, 38, 106. 

Bodin, Jean, 45-47, 104-105, 115- 

123. 
Boscovich, 69, 97. 
Bossuet, 97. 
Bradley, 38, 98. 
Browne, Thomas, 87-88. 
Bruno, 32, 39, 47-52, 82, 87, 88, 

105, 106. 
Burton, Richard, 88. 

Calvin, 41, 69, 99. 
Cartesian-Copernicans, 85-86, 91, 

95, 98, 106. 
Cassini, G. D., 96-97. 
Castelli, 56, 67. 
Church Fathers, 17-18, 117. 
Cicero, 11, 12, 27, 111. 
Cleanthes, 13. 



Clement of Alexandria, 16. 
Clement VIII, 124n. 
Congregations of the Index, 52, 
57-60, 65-71, 74, 79, 83, 101, 
106, 113. 
Copernicus, 12, 20, 21, ZZ, 35, 63, 
81, 82-83, 88, 90, 99, 100, 102, 
104, 109, 118, 124. 
name, 23n. 
life, 23-29. 
theory, 5, 27-28, 64, 66, 68, 97- 

101, 104, 105-106. 
opponents, 32, 35, 39-40, 41, 45- 
48, 58-60, 69, 71-84, 94, 96, 
101-104. 
supporters, 30, 31, 35-38, 39, 42- 
43, 44-45, 48, 49-52, 53-55, 
56, 60, 71-72, 74-77, 89-94, 
95-96, 97-99. 

Dante, 18. 

Delambre, 80, 81. 

de Maupertius, 96. 

de Peyster, J. W., 103. 

de Premontval, Mme., 95. 

Dc Revolutionibus, 26, 27, 42, 60, 

70, 105-106,, 109-115. 
Descartes, 82, 85, 97. 
Didacus a Stunica, 44. 60, 70, 82, 

100. 
Digges, Thomas, 87n. 
Diogenes Laertius, 10. 
Dominicus Maria di Novara, 24, 

25. 
DuBartas, 43. 

Fenelon, 97. 

Feyens, Thomas, 60, 74, 124-129. 

Flammarion, 41. 



145 



Forbes, Duncan, 94. 
Foscarini, 60, 70, 71-72, 82, 100. 
Foucault, 38, 102. 
Froidmont, see Fromundus. 
Fromundus, 60, 69, 74-75, 82. 

Galileo, 16, Z7, 52-69, 70, 7Z, 74-75, 
77, 79, 82, 83, 85, 86, 99, 100, 
105, 106, 125. 

Gassendi, 82, 91, 97. 

Gilbert, Wm., 50, 82, 87. 

Greek philosophers, 10-12, 27, 46, 
119. 

Herbert, George, 88-89. 
Hipparchos, 13, 34. 
Hicetas, 11, 111. 
Home, George, 94. 
Hutchinson, John, 94. 
Huygens, Christian, 88, 95. 

Index, 52, 60, 69-70, 95, 97, 99, 100. 
Inquisition, 51, 52, 56, 57-60, 64-67, 

69, 84, 99. 
Isidore of Seville, 18. 

Jasper, Bro., 99. 

Jesuits, 55, 56, 76, 77, 79, 85, 97- 

98, 100. 
Johnson, S., 87. 
Justus-Lipsius, 74, 82. 

Keble, J., 93. 

Keill, J., 90-91. 

Kepler, 29, 34, 35-37, 47, 48, SZ, 55, 

70, 82, 100, 105, 106. 
Knap, 102. 

Kromer, M., 47n. 

Lactantius, 16, 115, 

Lalande, 99. 

Lange, J. R., 103. 

Lansberg, 74-75, 82. 

Leo X, 115. 

Liege, Univ. of, 76. 97-98. 



Longomontanus, 79. 

Louvain, Univ. of, 60, 74, 75-77, 

86, 98. 
Luther, 31, 39, 69, 99. 
Lutherans, 101, 103, 105. 

Maestlin, 36, 2>7, 48, 81. 
Martianus Capella, 74. 
Mather, Cotton, 92. 
Melancthon, 31, 39-41, 99. 
Milton, 43, 67, 89. 
Mivart, 101. 
Montaigne, 45. 

Narraiio Prima, 31, 106. 
Newton, 2>7, 67, 86, 87, 90. 
Nicolas Cusanus, 22, 23. 

Origen, 16. 
Osiander, 29, 32. 
Owen, J., 89n., 99. 

Paul III, 109. 

Paul V, 56-60, 63, 69, ^. 

Peter Lombard, 18. 

Peter the Great, 96. 

Philastrius, 17. 

Philo Judaeus, 16. 

Philolaus, 11, 112. 

Piegeon, J., 96. 

Pike, S., 94. 

Pius VII, 70. 

Plato, 10, 122. 

Plutarch, 10, 13, 27, 111. 

Pope, Alexander, 91, 93. 

Pseudo-Dionysius, 18. 

Ptolemy, 9n., 13, 14, 81, 107-109, 

117, 119, 124. 
theory, 5, 16, 19, 27, 35, 53, 54, 

66, 80, 83, 85, 96-100. 
Piirbach, 21. 
Pythagoras, 10, 11, 102. 
Pythagoreans, 109, 112. 

Recorde, R., 42-43. 



146 



Regiomontanus, 20, 21, 81, 117, 119. 
Reinhold, Erasmus, 31. 
Rheticus, 29-31, 39, 81, 106. 
Riccioli, 5, 22, 79-84, 100, 113. 
Roberts, 101. 
Roemer, 38. 

Sacrobosco, 16, 41, 11. 
Salamanca, Univ. of, 16, 44. 
SchoepflFer, C, 102. 
Schwilgue, 42. 
Settek, 99, 106. 
Shakespeare, 50. 
Sindico, 103. 
Stephen, Leslie, 94. 

Thomas Aquinas, 18. 
Turrettin, 99. 
Turrinus, J., 83. 



Tycho Brahe, 14, 32-37, 47, 82, 105. 
theory, 34. 48, 74, 11, 79, 80, 85,* 
96, 98, 102, 105. 

Urban VIII, 63^9. 

Van Welden, M., 76-77. 

Vitruvius, 14. 

Voight, J. H., 77-78. 

von Schonberg, N., 30, 39, 110. 

Wallis, 84n. 
Wesley, J., 93, 99. 
Whewell, 16, 89. 
Widmanstadt, 30, 39. 
Wilkins, Bp., 89-90, 95. 
Wren, Dean, 87-88. 

Yale, Univ. of, 91. 

Zytphen, 102. 



147 



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